Backyard Camera Trapping FAQ
What camera should I use?
There are a number of cameras on the market which you can use, a good review can be found here. We ask that you use a camera which uses a ‘black flash’, meaning that at night it switches to an Infra-red format and uses a flash which is invisible to us. The quality of these photos is less than that of a white-flash, however for the purposes of species identification they are suitable and means you don’t have random white flashes through the night in your garden. Price is not always a good indicator of a good camera trap, we suggest that a camera in the $100 - $150 range would be more than suitable for a survey of this nature. There are options to move up the range and get a camera which is able to send the images it captures through a WiFi network (given that your home WiFi extends far enough into your garden) or even send them via a cellular network.
What settings should I use on the camera?
Remember to set the correct time and date on the camera and put this as a stamp on the image taken if your camera can. Then we suggest using a lower image quality between 2 to 5 MP – that is all that we need for species identification, and anything greater than this means very slow uploads to our system and analysis. Set the camera to take a ‘burst’ of 2 images for every trigger event, and start off with ‘no delay’ between trigger events. In some cases where you start finding a high frequency of repeat images due to many squirrels or deer loitering in front of your camera you can perhaps input a 1 minute delay between photo events. Do not select video for this survey.
Where should I put the camera?
The camera should be placed at knee height, perpendicular to the ground and as straight as possible, eMammal has a great training videos to help. You do not have to place it on a tree – you can attach it to a stake in the ground to get it in the best spot. Ideally it should face North to minimize sun interference of the camera, and definitely not directly due East or West if there is no cover from the rising and setting sun. Please only place this camera in your own backyard and point it into your own space rather than your neighbors. Please do not put it in public spaces and respect your neighbors privacy.
How often should I check the camera?
This will largely depend on the battery life and the SD card memory storage that you have in your camera, we suggest at least to initially check the camera monthly to make sure that your batteries are fine, your SD card not full and to ensure it is still upright and has a clear, unobstructed view. When the rainy season starts you will find grass and weeds rapidly growing and obscuring your view finder, and also creating many false triggers and blank images. Sometimes some mowing/weeding is needed to mitigate this. In most cases you should be able to leave the camera for at least the 3 month deployment time, as you are not using video, however if the camera is in a place where animals might rub up against it and move it or somewhere you could have plant foliage falling in front of the view-finder, you might want to check the camera more frequently.
What should I do with the photos that I collect?
Contact Trevor Hebert and he will set you up with a simple Google Drive folder to upload images to, and we will use some image recognition software to initially help identify species and sort the images. You can upload all the images at the end of your 3-month deployment, and you will have quarterly folders allocated for each of these uploads. This is done so that no images are lost by being written over during multiple upload events. You will also need to go through your images to check how well the AI has done for the first few rounds, as novel camera setups require some learning from the algorithm we use.
