Wildview Xtreme II 2.0 MP Scouting Camera Product Review

I have owned and operated five of these cameras over the last 18 months. They have been in the field probably 50% of the time, regardless of weather conditions. At the end of the day, for $99 when I bought them ($79 now), they are a good camera for what I need.

“What I need” of course is the critical part of that sentence.

I am setting the cameras up directly looking at feeders or various types of bait, scent brinks, and mineral blocks to photograph the variety and quantity of species present. You can buy a 128 MB SD chip at your local office supply or outdoor store for less than $20, usually around $15. If you want to get the most value for your dollar, this camera does a fine job.

However, if you can not visit the camera on a WEEKLY basis at least, then don’t get this camera. It really eats batteries. I even bought the large battery pack from Cabela’s that the salesperson told me to get. Not only did I come home with a 6V battery (which apparently it takes a 12V battery even though the camera holds 4 x 1.5V C batteries.) But even with auxiliary power, there seems to be “glitches” that lock up the camera so having more battery life hasn’t helped. This results in one of five of the cameras either not taking pictures, or at a minimum, loosing the date/time stamp. For my purposes, this is no big deal, but it has often been annoying.

Also, whether the camera or SD memory card is the problem, about one in ten times there are photos on the card, but I can’t “see” them. I just deleted 200 of those yesterday. Since I check on the cameras every couple of days this is no big deal. But – if you are looking to buy a camera for your lease that you don’t want to worry about or that you can’t check but every couple of weeks, this wildlife camera IS NOT THE ONE YOU WANT.

There is a shutter speed issue which prevents this camera from being set up on a trail. Whether to catch trespassers or wildlife, the shutter speed is too slow after the motion sensor sets it off to capture the target. Usually I get the toes of the back foot or just nothing. (This is why I said they are fine if you have them set up on a feeder.)

The Settings and Features are basic:

1. On/Off (with a 3rd option called TEST that I never use)
2. Delay between photos: 1,5,10,20 minutes
3. Number of images taken: 1,2,3 or AVI movie. There is no point to set it other than on "1" because the flash doesn’t work on the second or third photo. There is no point in my opinion to set it on AVI because all it does is suck the battery faster and take up more memory. You are better off buying a camera that is four times as expensive if you really need these features.
4. Flash: On/OFF/Auto. I use Auto, except when I am trying to catch trespassers because that gives away the camera location and most of my trespassers are daytime anyway. If night time trespassers are your issue, you really want to buy an infra-red camera that doesn’t use a flash anyway.
5. Resolution: High/Low. I always use "High" which is 2.0 MP, instead of the "Low" which is 1.3 MP, because the batteries will die usually before it takes enough photos to fill the 128Mb SD memory stick. 

There is a USB plug to plug into your computer to download photos, but why use it since the internal memory is tiny. Also, if the batteries go dead, or fall out, then those photos are deleted anyway.

The battery compartment is awkward. If you set the camera at a downward angle, and even sometimes just looking straight out, the door you open to adjust the settings exposes the batteries. More times than I can count, the batteries have “popped out” and I have had to reset everything. This is a negative that you learn after the 25th time and I have developed a slow opening, finger over the battery, hold the batteries with one hand while I adjust the settings, close the door technique.

In Summary:

Now, after I just listed all of these negatives, how can you think I like this trail camera? Well, it is not that I like the camera, but since I needed five cameras, and I had a specific purpose in mind, they have served me well for the money spent. I could have bought one really nice camera and a much bigger memory stick for just less than for what I bought all five cameras.

In the process of writing this, I came across two threads of people talking about the Wildview Extreme II. The links are below. Also, rather than re-invent the wheel, and considering how much time it really takes to test and learn each type of camera out there, I found a great article on another website with a table of many different makes and models of wildlife trail cams. I highly recommend you read this information before buying your next wildlife camera.

Digital Trail Cam Reviews (22 Different Wildlife Cameras)

By Jason Parrish
Hunt Hard. Fish Smart. Explore Texas.

PS: Remember to search for Wildview Extreme as well as Wildview Xtreme to research this product because half of the reviews and half of the retailers have it spelled both ways.

Images and Files: View all 6 photos / videos here.