Trail Cam Gone Bad!!!!

[RWTaxidermy]

Well this is my first year out using trail cams, needless to say I have had many ups and downs so far. I have gotten some very nice pics and some that you could hardly even see.

My first set of pictures came out awsome, only a few small bucks and some very nice does but the quality of the pictures were good for the quality of the camera. My second set of pictures needless to say were not very good at all, as my luck goes these picss had several bucks in them but the pics were too dark to make out how big they actually were. well my third set ,,,,,this is where I figured out my cam has a major malfunction. Heres is the story on that, when I went to change out the film on my second roll of film the cam had been hanging for about 11 days and the display read 18 pics, so I opted to wait 4 more days to see if the remaining pictures would be used up, to my suprised when I returned 4 days later the display still read 18 pics, so I chose to hit manual rewind so /I could change the film and see what I had on the roll I just took out, well when I hit rewind I got nothing, I opened the camera to find that all 24 exposures had already been taken and the film had already rewound.

My third roll of film, the cam was left hanging for 7 days. I checked the display and it read 32 pics, I opened the back of the camera to change out the film to find that I did not have 32 pictures as shown on the display, but only about 12 pictures were taken and I just ruined 1/2 a roll of film by exposing it to light . Not very good luck for my first time using a scouting cam.

well after being very dissapointed with my results I called the manufacturer of the cam and told them the problems I am having, to my suprise they told me that the control board is definately defective and to return it to the place of purchase for exchange, every thing was cool on that part, I exchanged for a new cam of the same model.

I went back to the woods to hang the cam back in the tree when something had come to my attention, my first set of pictures came out great and everything from then on was problems, I remember after I changed out my first roll of film we had had some very strong storms for about 5 days after that and a 20" sasafras tree about 15ft from my cam was struck and split into by lighting, my conclusion is the static from the lighting strike being that close must have burnt up the control board in my cam. Whats Your Thoughts?

[wtnhunt]

bet the lightning when it hit the tree could have fried your cam. Had a tree about 20 feet from our garage get hit and it fired our garage door opener.

As for the film not rewinding or rewinding or lcd having the wrong thing displayed, that kind of sounds about like some of the problems I started having with our stealth cam after about a year and a half of use out of it.

[Huntr104]

Yup, I'm sure the lightning had something to do with it.

[6sixpoint_nobrows]

i bet the lightning played a big roll......what brand is your cam....sounding how you described it i think i know what it is.... if you dont want to say drop me a PM on what brand it is....cuz i might be having the same problem..