Of all the interests I've dabbled in, one that has consistently held energy has been photography. This has lead to much better vacation pictures, but the aspect I like the most is some of the other interesting things that are possible. Double exposures. Reflected light. Soft focus, etc. And, time lapse.
I've played around with time lapse using traditional inexpensive digital cameras and it works but there are some limitations. So a couple years ago I bought a Wingscapes time lapse camera. This has been taking pictures daily of my back yard now for over a year (with a brief interruption due to a faulty Moultrie product, which is the reason for this post).
Late last year (2012), I bought a Moultrie Plot Stalker camera to take the place of the Wingscapes TimeLapseCam I've been using. The Moultrie was similar in form to the Wingscapes and by downloading the manual I could see that the overall function was nearly identical as well. The Moultrie was a little less expensive, but didn't have the ability to focus at close distances; this didn't matter since I wanted it to take the place of the Wingscapes, freeing it for other time lapse projects.
At the beginning of the year, I installed the Moultrie camera to continue my long term time lapse project of my back yard as I wanted the Wingscapes close focus for some other ideas. Over the first few weeks, the Moultrie Plot Stalker only took pictures about half the time. I'm 100% sure I was using it right since the function was nearly the same as the Wingscapes. The Moultrie camera was defective.
Any time pictures were pulled off of the camera, it took an elaborate ritual to get it to take pictures again. But, since the camera appeared to be functioning normally, it was impossible to tell if it was actually taking pictures. There is a little red LED on the camera which indicates whether it is taking pictures - it blinked merrily away, often never taking a photograph.
Time lapse photography is a long term time investment. Sometimes these projects take hours or days. In the case of my back yard time lapse, it takes months to years. Losing this data was exceedingly frustrating.
The camera was still under warranty so I sent it back to Moultrie with a letter explaining the problem and how to recreate it. Weeks later, I received the camera back with no change to the unit and a letter that clearly stated that Moultrie did not try to recreate the problem and the camera was working correctly. It was a little insulting that the letter had written on it to check my batteries and SD Card (hand written).
Since time lapse photography can be a long time investment, I was hesitant to trust the Plot Stalker anymore. Earlier this week, I decided I wanted to try to time lapse something that was only a couple hours of time and could easily be recreated so I decided to use the questionable Moultrie camera. I installed fresh Duracell batteries and a good 16GB SD Card. After securely mounting the unit and setting it up, I left it to take pictures - that later would be stitched into a movie.
The Moultrie Plot Stalker failed after 15 minutes!
The end result is shown in the video embedded in the posting.
I don't blame Moultrie for selling a product which is not of the best quality. Since there are several cameras that use that form and function similarly, I don't even think Moultrie actually makes it. I'll also note that not only do they not sell that camera anymore, I can't find any legacy information about it on their web site (some embarrassment perhaps?).
I don't fault Moultrie for selling a camera which did not function as advertised. To quote a mechanic acquaintance of mine, anybody who thinks paying more for something means it will never break has never owned a Mercedes. The lack of positive reviews on this camera from commercial sources does suggest my Moultrie Plot Stalker is not an isolated case however.
I do fault Moultrie for not standing behind their product. The Moultrie Plot Stalker was so obviously defective that after taking the time to send the product back with a letter on how to recreate the problem, they should have remedied the situation.
I'm not going to rant and rave about how terrible Moultrie is. They are just trying to make a profit like every other company out there. But, since they don't make anything terribly unique, there are many other options. Given Moultrie's inability to stand behind a product with the Moultrie name, their products will be avoided.
Was shooting the Moultrie Plot Stalker with a 9mm Silly? Yes, but it was going in the garbage either way so it was also a little cathartic and fun.
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