26/02/2023
Inspired by photographer Sascha Fonseca, who won the Wildlife photographer of the year, People’s choice winner, and photographer Vyacheslav Zametnya who won the photo-competition Wildlife of Altai, I will try to make a camera-trap myself. If it works, I will take it on our trips to place it somewhere where we know wild animals are passing by. Hopefully I can share the pictures with you. I added a picture of one of the wild-cams that we have from some years ago, so the goal is to make a picture like this, but then in color, with much higher resolution.
So, first step is to read about how this works. We already use the wild-cams that you can buy, and of course they work fine, but the quality is not what I am used to from my DSLRs. Luckily for me, there are a few forums where you can find a lot of information, “how to’s” and “do’s and don’ts”.
The main part of this project will be the camera of course. Although I have very nice Nikon camera’s it doesn’t seem to be a good idea to put such expensive equipment somewhere in the middle of nowhere with the risk that it will be stolen or destroyed. But, I still have a small Panasonic Lumix G5, and although I use it sometimes, it is actually not my preferred camera, it is not expensive, and most of all, it has a remote shutter connection.
While reading a lot of info, it turned out that a project like this, can be made as expensive, or cheap as you want. You can buy ready to install setups with triggers and flashes, or make some parts yourself, this way you can save a bit of money. For now, I have ordered a lot of electronic parts on Aliexpress, a PIR (Passive InfraRed sensor), an Arduino nano controller, some resistors, some switches, some cables and connectors, and when everything arrives, I will try to put it together in a functioning camera-trap. Testing if this camera-trap will work will take place in our garden (we have enough dogs running around who will trigger that sensor many times). I will keep you posted from time to time about the progress.
