The Camera Trap Cookbook is a collection of articles focused on how to modify and customize camera traps for wildlife research and conservation. It includes articles on how camera traps (or trailcams) are manufactured, how the actual technology works, teardowns, practical tutorials on how to modify ‘off the shelf’ camera traps and get them in the field, and essentially how to tease additional functionality out of camera traps that they don’t normally come with.
We’ll cover adding your own lens’, adding batteries to extend the field life, triggering events when recording starts (ie: audio playback – Boombox), externally triggering recording to start, synchronizing multiple camera traps, etc…
To be notified when articles launch, please join our mailing list below.
Here’s a list of the planned articles. The hyperlinked items are available and non-hyperlinked articles haven’t been written yet. Check back to see the latest updated articles and additions to the list.
Camera Traps
Consumer Camera Traps – Behind the Scenes (article)
A backgrounder on imaging & manufacturing scene & how that led to current environment of camera
History of Camera Traps (article)
The evolution of camera traps from film cameras & rigs, how they evolved to today’s setup, and the problems that mass camera traps introduces to data processing
Lenses
Camera Trap Lens Basics (article)
An article on lens standardization, interchangeability, lens attributes, & why you’d use each type of lens.
Changing to Fisheye Lens (practical guide)
Changing to Macro Lens (practical guide)
Changing to Manual Zoom Telephoto Lens (practical guide)
The FrankenCam (practical guide)
Batteries
Battery Basics (article)
An article on battery types, chemistries, testing, discharge curves, temperature ranges, connector types
Measuring battery capacity (article)
Using NiMH batteries in trailcam (practical guide)
Modifying trail cameras for Lithium-ion batteries (practical guide)
Making an external rechargeable battery for Bushnell trail cameras (practical guide)
Making an external rechargeable battery for Browning, Spypoint trail cameras (practical guide)
Making external batteries for other trail cameras (practical guide)
And more to come …