Chasingame Reviews: Gobblecam

GobbleCam P-41
White Flash www.gobblecams.com

Gobblecam P-41 white flash review 09-26-2008

OK, now that I have all your eyebrows raised and heads tipped back wondering if this is some kind of a joke. Well, I can assure you that this is probably going to be a name that many of the chasingame followers will grow to know. I have known about these cams for quite some time because I have to cruise the many outdoor forums looking for scouting camera issues and information. One of the forums that I frequent on a daily basis is the Mississippi forum and this is where the big boss man from this company hangs. From what I have seen written about his products would fill a book with endorsements. This company wants to grow and get some more visibility to the folks who have the need for scouting cameras. We have a large following of those who choose to build their own cameras (homebrew) and we on occasion see a rivalry between those folks and the factory produced cams. What if you were a person who does not have the talent or maybe the time to set at the kitchen table and build your own? Should you be left out of the market because of this? This company is one of several who has taken the homebrew type camera and refined the building to a degree that it is a finished product that is very desirable to many in the market for that perfect scouting camera picture. These units use the standard digital point and shoot type of cameras and adapt them to be controlled by a circuit board and PIR sensor. The end result is high quality CCD pictures that have extreme detail (acuity) and color. These folks have played with many different cameras and now have them operating with some pretty fast trigger times and great sensing distances. Most folks that have shopped for a white flash camera this year find that you have a very small selection and out of that selection there is things that just don’t seem to be up to par. Having a price of $420 puts this cam in the same price range of the middle priced commercial cameras. Having the great picture quality in both day and night operations and a decent trigger time puts this cam in a leading position against the competition. These cams are in a limited supply because of the limited staff and availability of adaptable cams. You probably could not place an order for 10 and expect delivery in a couple of days but give this fellow some time and he will deliver. A good solid small weather tight case with built in security also would mean a lot to the new owner. All of this has been carefully planned and the finished product is very good. Using high mAh NiMH batteries this camera is advertised to give very good life. Of course that is going to be an area we will be testing extensively. This is going to be a long term review because we have many people interested so we will try to pay as much attention to this cam as we can. The guarantee is a year so that matches or exceeds some commercial cam companies and shows how much faith they have in their product.

This cam is built in an otter 3250 camo box in a fall color pattern. The main camera is the Sony P41 4.1MP camera which tucks tightly in the bottom of the case. In fact it is so tight that it keeps the battery/card lid open button depressed and when you remove the cam to view the card the door just pops open. The control board is the snapshot sniper board which is set in the top of the case and is powered by its own 9 volt battery that will run the board for nearly a year. The front of the cam looks out through the back of the box and there is a battery holder in the lid which now becomes the back of the box. Are you thoroughly confused by that description? What I am saying is that they use the back of the box as the front so the lid section of the box is now the back and is the part that goes against the tree. The front of the cam has a wide angle PIR sensor mounted in the top right and the flash and main camera lens are at the bottom front of the cam. The snap latches are closed by pulling forward (away from the tree) to close. There is a on/off switch on the left side of the camera just above center. Care must be taken while handling and transporting because this would be one area that could be damaged if the switch took a direct hit. There is an number of features that allow this cam to be adjusted to most users wishes. Delay times of 5, 10, 20, seconds and 1, 2, 5, 10 minutes are easy to program in. There is a walk test mode where the user can perform tests and watch the front of the camera and there is an indicator which tells the user the limits of the sensing area. The delay periods can be set differently for day and night operations. There is a multi shot (burst) feature also that allows for up to 4 shots fast to catch that old buck following that doe into the area. Standard day/night/24 hour operations can also be selected. As the weather gets colder or hotter the sensitivity can be adjusted to keep the animal that is being sensed in the range of the flash and camera. All this programming is easily set up with just two buttons and set by the final menu which is exit/set. Those who just must see what is on the card in the field can use the view screen on the camera to toggle through the pictures but this action will most certainly eat up some of your battery life. During normal operations also make sure that the view screen is off or again this will greatly reduce battery life. With good batteries this cam can record around 4000 pictures. Should the batteries go dead there is a counter that will record missed triggers as events. I am going to call this cam 9 inches tall and 5 inches wide and about 4 inches thick. Relatively small and should be easy to conceal on just the right tree. There is a through the case pipe which allows the use of a python cable to give very good security. They would have to cut the cable or tree down to get the camera. I am not going to try to go into the Sony programming because it is very complex and it is also pre set by the company when you get the cam. We will get some flash range and sensing range pictures and take this thing to the hill for some fuzzy brown testing.

09-27-2008 update: Flash range tests proved to be good past 40 feet and the sensing was a problem. I tried both high and very high settings and for this 61 degree morning this cam had a hard time seeing me at 35 feet which is well within the flash range. The unofficial trigger time tests showed times ranging from just over a second to just under two seconds. I pulled about 50 tests in a row and because of the difficulties of getting the cam to sense it took a lot of time. Here is two areas that I definitely do not like about this camera. Both are very minor but very aggravating. The first is the fit to the case issue. The camera fits very tight and this depresses the tiny button on the battery/card cover and when the camera is removed the door comes open most every time that the camera is removed. Several occasions one of my high dollar rechargeable cells was shot out into the leaves and required a flashlight and some time on my hands and knees to find. The other area is the slide switch to put the camera in picture mode is very easy to move and I found that several times I had slid the switch just enough to cause the camera to not work. Both of these issues are minor and just caused a degree of aggravation. Care must be taken when removing the camera and when re inserting it into the case to prevent what my clumsy old fingers experienced. It requires that the cam get a quick check over prior to closing the case to make sure that the cam is fully seated in the case and that the switch had not inadvertently been slid. I found that if you insert the camera about a half inch above the bottom of the camera all the way in and then slide it down to its final place and then to remove the camera slide it up that same half inch and then remove the camera it works much better. Well so much for this part and we need to get the official trigger times and then do the 50 foot deep woods test just prior to setting it up for sample pictures.

09-28-2008 update: Well about a tired 5 hours and some raging tempers we had to exchange some mail then a phone call and double check the settings. We have had a problem with this cam sensing and writing to the card. We changed from the “activity” setting to single shot and used a different card. The cam began to act normal after that. The trigger times came out about 1.5 seconds without flash and a full 3 seconds with flash. The little grove that the ridge on the battery door slides into is worn so it looks like that might be a future problem. We have to be very careful opening and closing this door. This may be related to the tight fit into the case as earlier described. We found that sliding the cam up toward the Sniper board before removing it seems to work for us much better than pulling it straight out from where it is seated into the case. We studied a number of homebrew builds of the same setup and one of the things that stood out on them was the use of a piece of foam behind the camera that was glued to the door. This applies a degree of pressure on the cam and makes it seat close to the same position every time. This might be a good addition to this camera also. I found that with the case locked into the camera stand and I was doing some testing that when I re installed the camera it always did not seat into the same position which caused a difference in aim, which caused me to have to re do the test again. This evening we will try to get the deep woods 50 foot flash test done then start getting some sample pictures.

09-29-2008 update: We did get some sample pictures so that is part is finished. The pictures came out sharp and clear as expected. There has been another marathon round with this camera and its programming which resulted in finding corrupt cards and a camera that kinda has a mind of its own. Once programmed and set up according to the documentation we determined the flash trigger tests were back now to 1.5 seconds and not three seconds as before. This cam came in with its inners floating around inside the case so no one knows how much of an effect this has had on the function of the P-41. We will now attempt to get some deep woods flash range testing done so we can get on to the next cam in line.

09-30-2008 update: We have worked daily with the folks at Gobble and they have tried to aid us in this review because of the many difficulties. To make this camera work to its full potential the user must set down and put the camera in his lap and go through all the menu settings exactly or you will get some very strange happenings. Day one I had spent about two hours going through the program but did not find any error plus the memory stick was corrupt which caused some other difficulties.

From what we have seen to date the folks at gobble will be on the spot if you have problems. Here are the settings and make sure they are exact: (from instruction sheet)

Camera
*Program
*OEV
*Focus Infinity
*White Balance Auto
*ISO 400
*P. Quality Fine
*REC mode Normal
*Flash Level High
*P. Effect Off
Setup
* Moving Image MPEG movie
* Date/Time (optional)
* Red Eye reduction OFF
* AF Illuminator OFF
* Auto Review OFF
Memory Stick Tool
* Format OK
* File Series Series
* Create REC Folder OK
* Change REC Folder 101
Setup 1
* Power Save Off
* LCD Brightness Dark
* LCD Backlight Dark
* Beep OFF
* Language English
* Clock Set Enter correct date and time
Setup 2
* USB Connect Normal
* Video Out NTSC

The review on this camera has been a lot of work rather than fun. Things like a foam pad behind the camera to insure it is seated in place would make this cam much better. The aim of the PIR sensor is critical to have good operations. It is suppose to be wide angle but according to Mr. Gobble much care must be taken when setting up the camera which will require going into the walk test to achieve this. Then you have to go back into the program to set it back to the desired settings. This requires messing with the camera and unless it is locked down solid it will move and without the foam you have no means of telling if the camera is set back to its position also. This camera takes very sharp and clear pictures and having a sub 2 second trigger time it would fit into most situations in the field.

We will re do the sensing range tests one more time because GobbleCam also requested this and blamed the short distance on the bad memory stick???? We will see but we could see a degree of wear (scratches) in shipping on the plastic at the bottom of the sensor which we think may also play a part in the limited sensing distance. My original sensing tests were many and because of the difficulties I was having, I was continually moving the cam to see if I could find a “sweet” spot so I could get repeated results in the sensing. I love all the features and great pictures but this particular camera was near getting its self adhesive bulls eye for the hundred yard target mound. Once a few things got worked out it started to work pretty good and we were able to get on with the review. The repeat sensing range tests did not happen as the camera appeared to malfunction because of the card or camera or both (we are unsure). The unit has been shipped back to GobbleCam for evaluation.. We will not take this cam to the other testing area to put it on a regular trail situation. This concludes the review.

10-15-2008 update: Because of several breakdowns and having to continually mess with this camera we returned it to be evaluated. All the difficulties that we experienced was blamed on a defective card ????????????? We had used other cards in this camera and in fact the first failure we experienced was with one of our cards. Our take on this situation has brought us down to the conclusion that the cable connector between the camera and board was the culprit because we had to keep on disconnecting and re connecting this plug to make things work. We stated at the first of the review that the camera was loose inside the box and rattling around when we received this camera. We could disconnect the camera and as a stand alone the camera itself would work fine, hook it up and we had to play with it to make it work for a while then it would quit again. Well anyway this review is concluded.

note: trigger testing done in single shot mode not activity mode
Trigger without flash 1.5 seconds