Bushnell CORE DS-4K

I own three of this model and one with the single sensor. They're my go-to night video cameras and I've ordered several competitors that are long on promises and short on delivery. The video resolution really is 4K at 18p or 20p. I think this changed over time because my first unit is only 18p and the later ones are 20p. Some of the competitors brag about higher resolutions but they're fake or if it is 4K then they are 10p which is more like stop-motion animation. I can't use those in my night-time wildlife videos. 20p translated to 24p has noticeable jerkiness but that seems to be acceptable nowadays. Audio is 48kHz stereo and also stands well above the cheaper knock-offs. Some of the units have an annoying periodic hum in the background but at lest it is lower level. I've tried filtering it out but it's in a useful portion of the spectrum. Wildlife video viewers really appreciate good audio. These cameras have a fairly narrow field of view compared to others. You need to know where you want these pointed. I'm capturing wildlife in general and aim at well-traveled paths like a hole under the fence and a fence gate. The field of view is good for small animals (skunks, foxes, even mice/rats) but I only get partial body views of deer, cougar, or bears. If you need a wider field of view, you might want to consider something else. The wider field of view cameras don't trigger on the smaller animals. Knowing exactly where you are pointed and the actual field of view is a chore. The little built-in screen is difficult to see and while you're looking at it, you block the camera view. I've resigned myself to placing it best I can, triggering it to capture some video, taking the SD card out, and viewing it in on a computer. Repeat a few times to get it right. If you're going to keep the camera in one place, this chore is performed few times. One of my units drops the battery tray if it gets jarred. I can force it closed now with a 1/4 x 20 screw and washer on the bottom screw mount but I lost a few weeks of footage before discovering this. The whole plastic battery tray design and ejection system needs a little tweaking, IMO. I like the relatively quick re-trigger times. I find 1 sec to be the quickest useful setting. Lower re-trigger times at night seem fail to capture properly. It seems that the no-glow lights remain on long enough that on the re-trigger the camera thinks it is daytime so it does not turn the lights back on and the video is dark. So 1 sec re-trigger is my reliable setting and it's pretty good. Less than that may be good for daytime only. AA lithium ion batteries are my only choice and they last for several weeks with 6-8 captures every night. I use the Dynamic capture time and it works well to stay on for the action. I appreciate that the firmware keeps the settings and clock while I swap out batteries. Not sure for how long, but certainly for several minutes. The camera lenses are well shielded from the rain. On other cameras I've had to create my own rain shield but these stay clear for most (not all) situations and if not, they dry out themselves without extra maintenance. I'll keep looking for better 4K options but everything else disappoints. Look forward to a Bushnell update!

This worked nice for about a month, and then problems started. It stopped taking color pictures at all, and only black and white, day or night. I tried all different settings, tried various default settings as well as different camera locations, still only black and white. Now after quite a few months of use it has started forgetting the internal settings, and when you come back a week later to check your pictures, they are all stamped as 11:15 time, and the date of 12-22-2293. Sometimes I may have over 100 pictures taken over the course of a week, and all are stamped the same date in the future. This is an expensive camera, so very disappointed in being stuck with this one.

So far so good did not put it in the woods test it In my back yard no problem pictures are very clear Color is vibrant

Overall easy set up and takes really exceptional pictures. The order shipped relatively fast and the quality seems on part.

Bought the camera mostly for taking videos of local critters. Sadly you still can't have more than 15sec videos with full illumination at night, something that even the cheapest China cams can do. At least you can turn down the LEDs to get longer video recording and while nighttime videos are pretty good, the lens on the daytime camera seems to have an issue as on one side of the frame the video is soft while the other side is as sharp as you would expect. Seems to be an alignment issue between the elements of the lens.

Using this to monitor remote property and am quite pleased with initial setup tests. I need to be able identifying features-vehicle name, license plate, etc.-of vehicles entering and leaving property. The dual sensors work much better than my single sensor other camera which only gives me a “no glow flash” reflection off reflective license plates. Pictures are sharper too.

Needs a wide angle lens. The motion sensor is terrible, doesn't start recording until an animal is nearly past the camera, or will record the tiniest bird, there is no sweet spot on the sensor settings. The image quality in 4k is actually quite bad, the frame rate is terrible. At night, if it decides to record at all, will save 1 second videos when the settings are for 1 minute videos. I have messed with all of the settings time and time again, either I have a defective unit or this is just not a very good trail camera. I'll be returning it.

The pictures are great quality. The menu system is not intuitive. It should be easier to figure out. The strap should also be camouflaged.

I only use these trail camera's for video capture on my property. This Core DS-4K has the best day and night video I've ever seen and the illumination at night doesn't alert the animals.

I have been using trail cameras for about 20 years going back to 35mm trail cameras I used to import from the USA to my home in Canada. Gota say the 35mm pictures were amazing and I still have many pictures blown up to poster size on my walls at home. But, the best modern trail cameras are Bushnell & some higher end Primos in my view. I have purchased about 15 digital trail cameras over the years and am an avid Youtuber and wildlife researcher. Bushnell has good picture/video quality, long lasting and rugged and no silly firmware updates like other companies. Caution, never purchase any camera that requires computer plug in firmware updates. Peace & love.