Anyone here ever turned a 35mm trail cam in to a digital?

[WVdeerhunter]

I have a 35mm trail cam. that is fast but film is killen me and i was wanting to take out the 35mm and wire in a digital cam. does anyone know if i can?
Thanks

[wtnhunt]

Have read several places that it would not work right, but have never tried using an old film cam to convert into a digital. Basically the boards for the digital cams know when to turn the cam on and refresh the cam to keep the flash capacitor charged. The 35 mm cams from what I understand just trigger an event(cam always on). So unless you set up the digital cam somehow to be always on, which would eat up the batteries quickly, it would not work right.

[toddyboman]

sure wish there was a way to do this.......If you ever figure someout let us know .

I have 2 AWESOME 35mm cameras....but waiting and developing film is no fun and costly

[WVdeerhunter]

sure wish there was a way to do this.......If you ever figure someout let us know .

I have 2 AWESOME 35mm cameras....but waiting and developing film is no fun and costly

You hit the nail on the head. I thought you could just change the board or somthing.

[wtnhunt]

First cam here was a stealth cam, and when it died, believe me I thought about it too as it seemed like it would be simple enough to just take out the cam and wire up the existing setup with the digital. We went through a lot of film in that stealth cam in the time I used it before the cam quit winding and became useless. Think the first year we ran off somewhere around a roll a week or so. It adds up quick, especially if you have any 1 hour photo processing done.

I did take that cam apart and looks like it would be easy enough, however for the reason I posted before, it would not work. You have to have two things happen for a digital to work, a power on event and a trigger event. Digital cams are not all the same exactly, that is why there are so many different chips or variations in trail cam boards. Would venture to say most if not all digital cams will need both a powering on and a trigger to snap the shutter, then the board also has to tell the cam to power down after a set time. The 35 mm cams simply trigger, that is it. Once you have built one and have it in front of you, you will likely better see what I am trying to explain.