For daytime cams I pick up used GoPro Hero 3 Black (or 3+ Black, which Iike slightly better) from ebay. Just search "Hero 3" and you'll get a ton of results. There are Silver and White varieties of the Hero 3, and they're okay, but they record at a much lower data rate and thus the image is not as good. The up side of that is you get twice as much recording time on the same size SD card.
I load them with 128gb SD cards. They need to be somewhat fast. Class 3/V30/A2 is the key info to look for. I've typically used Samsung for about $20 each but I've recently found there is an Amazon Basics brand you can get for $12 and they work. Don't get weird off brand. Counterfeit SD cards are a thing - they say they're one size when really they're a fraction of that capacity. 128gb cards will give 9 hours of recording in the 3/3+ Black models, and twice that in the Silver and Whites.
I power them with Anker 10000mAh power banks. Those will go for about $20 each, but I've found deals on them where I've gotten them for as cheap as $12. These will typically power the cams for 9-10 hours - so, a perfect match for the card's recording capacity.
I use a burner phone where I have an old version (v6.16 I believe) of the GoPro app downloaded from UpToDown - an app store where you can get discontinued versions of apps. V6.16 just works with the older cams a lot better IMO, and I only use the burner phone because, aside from connecting to WiFi to download the apps, it never is connected to internet and won't auto update to the current (shitty) version of the GoPro app like it would if it were on my actual phone, which is always getting data. I have all my cams paired with the app, so all I do when I'm about to plant one is turn on the WiFi and scroll to that cam in the app. I label them with numbers that match their WiFi IDs, which is how they show up in the app and how I tell them apart. The app will show me the image from the camera as I hide it and lets me trigger recording after I step out of frame.
For hiding, I'm always either in a spot with sand (bushes off the end of the beach) or dirt if it's in the woods. I start by doing a quick and messy hide of the charger by shoving a few handfuls of dirt (or sand) over it. Then I pack some moist dirt tightly around the entire camera, the front being the most important. Once it's packed, I scrape the dirt off the glass portion of the lens while leaving the plastic rim around the lens and everything else covered in the packed dirt. In the end it just looks like a little black dot that blends in well with the dirt, and even in the sand it just looks like the little flecks of rock and charred firewood that the sand is already full of, so it's camouflaged well. The key is the moist packable dirt. It's basically the only way to selectively cover the rim around the lens while removing the dirt from the actual glass portion.
For nighttime, same drill except I use SJCam brand SJ4K cams. You can get them for under $50 on Amazon. Don't get the "upgraded" version with the additional screen on the front - they suck. Stopped recording after 15 minutes when I tried one. The SJ4Ks come with a micro USB cable you would connect to a charger and a 32gb card which gives you about 10 hours in these cams because they recorder a much lower data rate than the GoPros, even if you're recording 4K. So, a nice way to multiple components you need.
They do not come as night vision cams. I convert them by removing the lens, gouging out the infrared filter on the back of it, then simply putting it back - now it sees infrared. You could leave the IR filter alone and use the cam as a daytime cam for that matter, but I use them for night vision because of how easy it is to remove the lens and filter. The whole process takes only a couple minutes. The form factor is basically identical to the GoPros so the hiding process is the same.
Then for night vision, you just need to add an IR light source. I use Andoer brand IR LED lights - they're about 3"x3" with a 7x7 grid of LEDs, about $25 on Amazon. When fully charged they'll last about 2 hours at full brightness, but I connect them to the same type of charger I use with the cams and that will keep them powered for about 12 hours. I just plant this light about a foot away from the cam to light the space I'm filming and that's it. I make sure not the put it too close to the cam because if someone notices the red light and snatches the light, it won't disturb the camera the way it would if they were right next to one another. Better to have someone walk off with just the light vs. finding the camera too and taking that as well.
Now, there is a trick to making the red light less visible and thus the lights less prone to being found and taken. Overexposed, developed color negative film over the front of the light helps block the visible red wavelengths while letting the IR wavelengths through, so I have film on the fronts of all of them. Then when I plant them, I wrap a couple of crumpled coffee filters loosely over the front which helps further hide the red light and diffuses the IR light. It works well enough that, even looking closely, I can barely make out the red light, so someone who's coming into the space to pee and is not looking for it usually will not see it.
I think that pretty much covers it but feel free to follow up with more questions either in this thread or in a DM.
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12-22-2023, 10:44 PM
