Cuddeback Capture
27. Jul, 2008 
50 Comments
Cuddeback has released the Capture for 2008. I would assume that it was Cuddeback's intention to compete with Moultrie on the entry trail camera. The standard flash Cuddeback Capture can be found for around $199. The Cuddeback Capture IR is the infrared version and can be purchased for around $220. With both models being relatively new there are not many reviews available. Only time will tell if the Capture will be Cuddeback's answer to Moultrie.
Cuddeback (Capture) Game Camera Security Lock Box (not powder coated)
 | US $0.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Feb-11-2012 17:21:42 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
10pk 2GB SD Memory Card for Cuddeback Capture IR Camera
 | US $62.99 End Date: Monday Mar-05-2012 3:53:37 PST Buy It Now for only: US $62.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list |
Cuddeback Capture
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Do you have a Cuddeback Capture? How has it performed in the field? Please let us know.
I just bought two cuddeback capture cameras, and they are awesome. They are easy to set up, and take really nice pictures. Cuddeback really hit one out of the park with this line of cameras.
Just picked up one of the captures, and tested it at home for a couple days prior to taking it in the field.
The camera will die after 1-3 photos are taken, then the batteries have to be removed, placed back in again to take another 1-3 photos before it dies.
The photo quality under the flash is horrible. It looks like the complete color spectrum in the background of every photo.
I’m assuming this camera is not supposed to function in this manner, so I will return it to the retailer.
It would have been nice for cuddeback to catch this before I brought it home.
I purchased a cuddeback capture and I like it so much two weeks later I bought a second camera. These cameras are easy to use and take great quality pictures day or night. The battery life is also exceptional. The 4-D batteries in my first camera lasted 6 weeks with over 1500 pics taken. This include temps from 15-85 degrees F. I have not changed the batteries in the second camera and it has been in use for over 2 months, but has only taken a couple hundred pics. For the price and quality this camera is a steal.
Has anyone had any problems with the capture yet?
My buddy had a few problems with his.
ANd i’m VERY hesitant to buy another cuddeback after my then $300 excite had to be sent back 2 times and now not under warranty flat out doesn’t work! For all of you that buy a cuddeback and think it’s great right away, I will agree. Just give it time, time is the true piece that cuddeback still to my knowledge hasn’t completely put together such as the Moultrie I-40.
Please leave comments of any problems or any non-problems and in particular PLEASE reply to how long you’ve had it.
I am very curious to see if cuddeback has stepped up and finally made their cameras stand up to what they claim!
Thanks a bunch, Cody.
I got a brand new Cuddeback Expert and I am very aggrivated about the camera. It won’t save the images to the card, it will save them to the camera when I don’t have the card in it, but it won’t save them when I do have the card in. I tried reformatting the card 4 times and it did nothing. I then called Cuddeback and they said the problem was in the card and to get a new card. That didn’t fix the problem. I would like to think that I just got one of the very few bad cameras from Cuddeback, but it sure doesn’t appear to be that way based on what everyone is saying about them. I thought that Cuddeback was supposed to be the Cadillacs of all trail cameras. Maybe the Capture is better, I don’t know, but I WILL NOT be getting another Cuddeback trail camera.
I bought a cuddeback capture some time in the early 2008 summer and the machine operated perfectly until the 2009 turkey season when it was completelly submerged under water in a flood on my property. I know what your thinking, that should have been the end of the camerea’s life, but it was not. I simply took the the camera completely apart and let it dry out for about a week, put some fresh batteries in and it will still take pics. The batteries die in two weeks but still, I think that is pretty cool. Anyways I am buying another one ASAP!!!
I am on my 3rd excite as well. I took my first one back to the retail store after a month and they replaced it for me. The second time I had to send back and pay to have fixed after only 2 months of use. I have just put the refurbished model back out, hope it works better than the last two.
I have the ir and like kyle i have found it in the field dead pulling the batteries out and re inserting them. tried to take it back to cabelas but it was past 60 days so i have to go to cudde with it. with season so close i am going to use it and hope for the best. I have gotten over 900 pics in one week with out a problem but last week i got six. its hit or miss.
I bought a Capture (flash) last November….I didn’t use it until this past July….I left it out for 3 weeks (and dumb me I didn’t test it first) I picked up the camera and no pictures, nothing…I started working with it…set it up at home..on the deck…had some flashes…checked no photos…flash worked, but no photos…tested some more…looked at “trouble shooting”…thought maybe “formatting to fat” was the problem…formatted the sd card…tested by walking by…flash…no photo but got a time and cuddeback logo on a black photo…tried the card in a camera….camera worked fine….I went to cudde and asked technical…the answer was “send it in to cudde” still under warranty now…very disappointed….I liked the ease of set up…but what good was that with no photos…I don’t like not being able to take a common digital camera and pulling the sd card and looking at photos in the field without having to “purchase” the cudde viewer…just another gimmick to make you buy something else….I’ll keep this cudde when I get it back, but I’m looking at other cameras that may be just as easy to set up and don’t have to have “special” sd card setup…
I HAVE HAD 3 DIFFERENT CUDDEBACK IR’S. NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS. WENT THRU BATTERYS EVERY COUPLE DAYS, TOOK BAD PICTURES AND WASTED ALOT OF MONEY. I RETURNED FOR REPAIRS,EXCHANGES AND NEW CAMERAS. ALL THE SAME. FINALLY RETURNED THE LAST ONE AND GOT MY MONEY BACK. WORST BIRTHDAY GIFT I EVER RECIEVED. WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND ONE TO ANYONE.
I bought a cuddeback expert which worked fine the first fall. This august after I put it out, it would take 2 or 3 pictures and then would not take any more. Since it was guarenteed a year Cuddeback wants half the price of a new one to fix it. Do I throw good money after bad? Very unhappy with it!!!
We’ve had the Cuddeback Capture 1125 for a year, now. The camera worked fine at first. Then, after 4 months, we started getting quite a few “white” pics. Stayed this way until late fall of ’09, then just plain quit. Will power up but won’t take any pics. At all. Have tried numerous times to get live help via phone and they never answer, will cut you off after 15 minutes hold and tell you to call back.
Owned moultrie i40 for about 4 years, every
moultrie display slowly faded away. Went to
cuddeback capture, what a difference hopefully
if I have to send back to cuddeback there
customer service is as good as moultrie. Cuddeback
takes great pictures and batteries last along
time and very easy to set up, great product so far.
spend six hundred on three cuddebacks all junk customer support was a joke ,how on earth can three cameras have the same problem as whats posted here and support saying they never heard of the problem,save your moeney like i wish i did and buy froma diffrent company
I have had the Cuddeback Capture for about a year now an all i can say is it’s the best game camera i have ever had. it take’s nice clear pictures,supper easy set up an my battier life is awesome. every time i had it set up i came back to hundreds of pictures on the sd card the camera did not miss a thing over all im going to buy another one asap.
Guys i have a capture and it quit in three weeks…..sent it back and got another but guess what…maybe 3 pics…I tested it with three cameras in the same location…one being a cheap Wildview…49.00…the other a Moultrie D40they tool 180 to 200 pics during the same test period…..And as Usual for Cuddyback….No damn response. I think its a one man show there with automated voice …never did get to talk to a tech…Hell they are all probably in China anyhow……say the least i’m Pissed Eddie
PS still trying to get someone to talk to me …been two weeks
Just goes to show you that more expensive doesn’t mean better quality….The service speaks for itself…..Moultrie….They are great in that department….and you will get a call back usually in a hour if you don’t get them right then…..As far as Cuddy…..No support means the product is going down….They need to have a regular support person there to help.
No more Cuddys for me for sure…and i have over 8 cams in the field.
I have a Capture and have sent it in twice….and right now i have it sitting next to a wildview…50.00 camera. The Wildview will generate say a 150 photos…the capture may have 3 to 8…now mind you they are side by side…and like the rest you can never get anyone on the damn phone…very poor public relations ….will be moultrie all the way now for sure
Finally got a hold of Cuddeback and their answer is the heat….ran all the tests they had and said it all checks out but it still won’t take a picture farther than 2 to 3 ft out….and they say since the test check out they won’t give me an RMA number to send it back….the problem is obviously in the trigger sensitivity…so they need to look at it. I’m going to send it back in without an RMA will let you know where it goes….Way it is now they need to keep it as its worthless
I wish I would have read this before my purchase. Spent an hour trying to get this new out of box Excite to work… nothing… card error.. my butt. JUNK. Plus, SCHEELS dimwit salesman sold me the wrong card.. so, back to town for that right one, only for it not too work… Did I mention JUNK… PLUS, the series of buttons to push is rediculous. tay away from em from the sounds and experience.
I bought a Cuddyback 1 1/2 years ago, and it has a one year warranty. Had problems from day one. The first thing Cuddyback doesn’t have any instructions, that you have to format your SD card, meaning take the SD card, put in a didital camera and take a picture first, before you put into your trail camera. Learning this the hard way, I blew out two SD cards, because we put them directly into the trail camera, not knowing you had to format it first. That was problem one. Now you put your camera up, the camera shuts down after two days of work, or it works just when it wants to, until you pop the battery out, and have to reset it, and then it just takes a few more pictures again, over and over, you have to do this. I get mostly just white pictures. I called Cuddyback, and explained to her what was going on, and she said try a certain brand of SD card, and asked if my batteries were good, been there, did that stuff. Now its off warranty, after one year, $200.00 camera, I am supposed to send them $110.00 plus $10.00 shipping, plus my camera, and they said they would send me a new one. What I am I supposed to do here, I feel when you spend this amount of money, it should work for more than what it did, especially since it did not work from day one. There customer service sucks, and their camera sucks. My son and son-in-law have the same problems with their cuddybacks. They should go good on their camera, and I feel that I should get a new one, with no strings attached. If I did send it in, what are the chances that they would just send me my camera back rebuilt, and still have the same problems. I guess they think on the phone, that I have the words stupid printed on my head. So this would be over $300.00, and whats to say that I still would have the same problems. All I hear about cuddyback, from others, is problem after problem. I don’t think that I will ever buy from this company again, it is bogus. I might even think of taking them to small claims court, just to prove a point, of what junk these camera are. Don’t ever think of buying one of these, because you will get the bad end of the deal. This camera is a big big let down, never worked when I needed it to work, I am done with cuddyback, and please don’t make the same mistakes with your $200.00, you will be sorry!!
First off, George you have a real problem, lmao! What kind of chip do you have in there? It reccomends 1GB standard SD Chip with 2 being max but not reccomended. Maybe that is part of your problem??
I have over a thousand pics on my card and the alkie batteries just keep takin a lickin, but keep on tickin! So either you got unlucky with a real lemon or just plain need more smarts to operate the simplest camera in the world
Anyhow, here is my very honest review on the Cuddie 5.0 IR.
First off, cons
1. I wasn’t the happiest when I seen what used to be a previous US Product, now made in China like all the rest. No wonder we are going down the shitter!!
2. Cuddie brags about how simple they made that camera, which is the truth. But the simpleness bragging covers up the real truth which they don’t want to admit. That is, they cheapened what once was a fantastic camera up bigtime by removing many previous essential features.
3. It doesn’t take multiple pics at once which is a feature I like. The best you can do is set the delay to 30 seconds and you will enjoy quite a few pics.
4. You can’t set it to take video clips.
5. About every 30 pics or so, you will get one picture that won’t develop if you click on it. Maybe that’s a problem on my end with the card. I just flopped in a old 2 GB card I had laying around because I’m too cheap to buy a brand new 1GB card.
Here’s the pros:
1. The daytime pics are absolutely fantastic, better than any other game cam I owned. They are photo album quality. The night IR pics are like any other average IR camera. Good enough to see what’s lurking around and perhaps a good idea how many points are on your trophy buck but nothing spectacular.
2. The batteries last forever. I was thinking about modifying that camera by voiding the warranty and drilling a small hole through the back cover and hooking up wires to the terminals for external battery. But, after I seen how long budget alkalines last, I put that idea in the closet.
3. The trigger speed is extremely fast or faster than previous models, putting Cuddie in a class by itself with that feature.
4. By removing all the advanced features, they did make it extremely simple for any plain moron to setup. Well, almost any moron
Hope this review helps you. I may be somewhat outspoken, but I tell it like it is!
Here are a couple things that may help you with your new Cuddie:
1. It comes with a very cheap tree strap set-up. No matter how hard you try to tighten it, the camera will move all over everytime you go to open the cover on cam. You need to find something for a spacer to put between TOP of camera and tree. A 1/2 Dia. broken tree twig is easiest route otherwise you can get fancy and cut something up. It will be and stay very tight then.
2. The flash cards:
Make sure they are brand new, otherwise make sure you know how to format them on your pc if they are an older used one.
3. Your camera firmware update:
Uninstall 1 battery on your camera for a few seconds with POWER OFF. Then put the battery back in and watch your led display. It will display a set of numbers right away. Then it will display _ _ Then the 3rd set of numbers is your firmware in the camera. It says it needs to display 15 15 or higher to be the most recent update. My camera displays 27 27, so I got lucky and didn’t have to mess around updating it. Otherwise you need to go into the cuddie website and it’s kind of a complicated procedure.
After seeing the beautiful pic quality of the daytime pics, I like the camera a little more now. I have a new model Stealth Sniper IR ($150) right alongside my Cuddie. That camera takes outstanding night video clips. I get roughly 150 movies set at 50 seconds on a 4 GB card, which is fantastic. The IR on the Stealth is brighter than the Cuddie and lights up a larger area further away. The best part about that camera is the sound to go with the video. There is nothing like hearing the growling and snarling of coons when they get in a fight! That camera has a external battery hookup which is nice if you don’t want to mess with batteries. It has many other features that the Cuddie doesn’t have. If you get that camera to go alongside your Cuddie, you will have the best of both worlds. You will get outstanding videos on your Stealth and fantastic pics on the Cuddie to send to your friends for bragging rights. Which camera would I rather own if I only had one? Unfortunately that would be a very easy decision now that Cuddie is made in China, like Stealth!
I have had a Capture for slightly over 1 year. It had a great trigger speed and the pictures were good. Now it will not work at all. I will not waste my money on another Cuddy.
I bought the IR and it takes great pics but in Florida it will only capture game that comes within 10 feet of it which stinks. Factory rep was a robotic joke. Only answer from her was they have a problem in warm weather affecting the sensor. If a scouting camera will not capture game past 10 feet durring the months it is needed to scout what good is it?
My first camera that i bought was a cuddeback capture in 2008. After going thru a couple of sd cards before i got it to work i took a couple of sample pics to test the trigger speed i put it in the field and i was very happy with it. BUT after having the camera for 3 seasons now every so often even in the first year when i bring the card in to read it, it ways say that i need to format my sd card so then i loose all my pics. I called the support people and they blamed it on the sd card so i bought 2 new ones this year. When it works it take great pics due to have great trigger speed. one problem i’m having this year is that i have bought 2 new camera, one a bushnell and one primos 60. I haven’t had too many problems with them yet but there not getting the images that the cudde get in the same location. so what does a guy do put cameras out that take great pic and every so often you have to format the sd card or have cameras that all together miss the deer that the cuddeback gets?
I would like to know what cameras would be compitable with the cuddieback capture so we can see pic. out on the field without having to wait till we get home to read on the computer..thank you
I Have Been Using The Cudde back digital
{no Flash Cameras For 3 Years On My Ranch & Far As Me I Would Not Use Any Other . The Only Flaw That I Have Found Is @ Round Plastic On The Front Of It[It Needs To Be Glass Instead Of Plastic } & Our Wood Peckers Do A Numder On It ! So I Got The Idea To Put A Toy Snake On Top Of The Camera To Scare The WoodPeckers Off. Now The Eagles Hall The Snakes Off. But Far As Pictures There The Best So Clear & Fine. Also I Have Had No Trouble With Weather.
Hope This Is Helpful.
I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MY CUDDEBACK CAPTURE I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE NEW WHAT THE PROBLEM COULD BE WHEN I CHECK IT THE SCREEN SAYS BLOWN AND IT WONT TAKE PICTURES ANY INPUT WOULD BE HELPFULL.
All of the preceding comments appear worthwhile. My use is somewhat different from most and I will touch on a point that eludes most.
My intent was to keep it simple stay with one brand. One can’t get anymore simple and Cuddeback’s marketing (outdoor magazine advertisements, website, actual photos, etc) is head and shoulders above all others.
The real cost of a trail trap is NOT the initial purchase price. My use is simple; they are all (12) placed in deer habitat to monitor and gather data, e.g., sex ratio, fawn survival, age groups, etc. A year has 12 months and two (late summer & mid-spring) this data is required to be collected for a minimum 30 day period.
Properly stored, (dusted off, no chip, no batteries, secured gasket, etc) these $200 units should perform year after year. Would you not expect the same from a pocket Canon for $200 at Best Buy?
New, tested batteries are installed regardless of how they test with meter. Off to the field for a 30 day setup with a two week checkup, by switching out SD chips.
The photos that take are normally superb. No complaint here.
More important, over three years of use, I have a 30%+ failure rate which has necessitated modifying my two-week checkup. I no longer carry “swap out chips” and instead, because of high failure rate I simply bring all cameras in, verify and return only those back to the field that function as intended to preclude cameras that have malfunctioned and taken pics of nothing every 30 seconds of nothing, but nevertheless filling up the SD chip.
I have removed the batteries from these units and replaced with new-fresh batteries and had them occasionally function properly. Failure rates are intermittent. One works, takes a bunch of all black photos, then pics of nothing and back for new meal of batteries and SOMETIMES they will behave.
Regardless, I have had @30%+ die and not respond each year. After two and three years of this I simply throw them away as missing this 30 day window to collect data is primary. Time spent speaking with customer service, getting an RMA, boxing up, shipping off, doing w/out the data from this camera, getting it back after 30 day data collection and doing the same with 2 or 3 other cameras in the next data collection period makes these rascals really EXPENSIVE.
For those who have the money for a yearly disposable camera, this maybe the one for you.
There is simply a unacceptable year to year failure rate to me.
Good luck and sift through the marketing hype and comment shills and find something else that functions and share your experience with others. If it fails, tell everyone as well.
These sights are our only hope for unadulterated input.
Just a warning to all you yahoos praising your new cuddys. I started using them from a friends recommend 5 years ago. Bought a bunch and they all suck. They start out just fine, but dont last. A season if your lucky.Service and warranty also sucks. Tried several cheaper cameras and the difference is hugh. Sorry for the bad news, save your money
I have 2 Cuddeback Captures and neither one works after 1 year. These things are JUNK!!! What a waste of my hard earned $$. Never again will I buy/waste my $$ on, a Cuddeback!!!
Purchased two of the $450 cuddebacks when they first came out. They were stolen. Purchased three more at same price. After one year one quit working. Sent it to cuddeback and they called me and said the batteries had leaked and it would cost $100 to fix it. The batteries had not leaked and I knew it. I told them it was a software problem. Naurally they denied it. I had them to repair it, another $100. Now I had $2,350 invested not counting the cost of sd cards. A year later same camera with same problem quit working along with a second camera. This time they wanted $150 each to fix the cameras. I tried to explain that this is a reoccuring problem. Again they refused to recognize the problem with the cameras. They did say I could trade the two cameras ($900 worth) in for the capture Ir cameras for a mere additional $135 each plus $10 shipping. I told them I had also purchased the security boxes for the cameras at a cost of $35.00 each (another $105) at which they replied I could purchase some new security boxes for 20% off. Wow, what a deal. I give you two $450 cameras ($900) plus the cost of my security boxes ($70) plus a repair bill of $100 plus $270 for the two ir cameras and ($56) for the discounted security boxes. Now I have $1396.00 invested in two Capture Ir cameras. Gee, that sounds fair I thought, that is if you are a complete moron. You would think after investing $2,450 to date with them they would be somewhat customer friendly. It seems the almighty dollar is all they are interested in with absolutely no interest in working with their customers. I have news for them. Everytime I am in Bass Pro or any other store I make it a point to go to the camera section and spend at least a half an hour persuading potential camera buyers to buy anything but a cuddeback. I also have a huge number of hunters I am in contact with and I give them the low down on what Cuddieback is really all about. How stupid can you get to alienate the very people that keep you in business.
We have been cuudeback customers since they started making them. Used to be good cameras. The newer ones are undependable junk. Service is send it in and for $100 you get a different one thats probably junk too. Not what they used to be. Won,t buy anymore.
Cuddecrap terrible customer service junk camera’s don’t buy one.
Bought a $400 Expert camera breaks they will replace it for $110 and give me a $180 camera so for $510 i can have a $180 camera what a deal Cuddeback sucks.
We were loyal cuddeback users until the new captures came out. We have seven cameras. 3 are sent back to cuddeback. Told them to keep them. Won,t pay $100 for more junk sent back. Of the 4 left 1 is working the other 3 have dead batteries again after 3wks. Junk Junk Junk. don,t buy.
I have 7 Cuddeback Cameras. 1 Excite 4 Expert and 2 Captures. The Excite and Experts have worked well for me bringing in tens of thousands of pictures.(No Lie) BUT the new Capture has a serious factory defect. Both Captures after a few months started taking Black Pictures(Night Pictures where the Flash didn’t work) One camera was 13 Months from purchase and the other was 3 months from purchase. Cuddeback replaced the one still under warranty but refused to replace the other one. They wouldn’t work with me at all. I would have to spend $130 to repair it when it costs $190 new. Not only am I dumping Cuddeback all my associates which account for about 45 cuddebacks are dumping them as well.
i have a capture that the pictures are all lines .will reformatting the card help ? How do you reformat the card thanks for help
We have had several Cudde’s over the years. We like the newer models because of new battery design to hold batteries in place.
The latest Cudde Capture was bought last fall. It doesn’t seem to be consitent on when and if it takes a picture. The flash does not function properly because all night pictures are essentially black.
The simple set up is nice but you can’t tell if batteries are week until it just quits.
I’m thinkin to try some other brand.
Thought the Capture IR was good at first but then the problems started. first of all the battery life was very short. Then began finding the camera would shut itself off intermittently.
When I sent it back, supposedly under warrantee they denied it due to ” battery acid damage”.
I had already checked it out and completely dissasembled it looking for loose connections. There wasn’t any damage other than bieng a cheap P.O.S. internally.
The customer service was horrible and the warrantee is, as far as I can tell, a lie.
I gave my husband a Cuddy back camera last year for Christmas and he didn’t open it until this November, when hunting season was about to open. Now my problem is that it won’t take the pictures. I have tried to reset it with help from the company but still no luck. I took it back to GanderMountain where I purchased it and they said there is nothing they can do. That I would have to send it to the company.
Now I am disappointed that I paid $200. for it and it doesn’t work correctly and can’t get any satisfaction. What can you do for us.
unfortunatley, i to have spent a small furtune on just about all makes and models of cuddyback cameras and have had the same out come, works good for a while and then back to the factory for repairs. if i got one hunting season with one out of seven camers that made the 3 mont run i was happy. but after years of sending back and paying 80.00 to 110.00 dollars each time just to keep my investment going. i finally quit feeding the monkey and bought a differant brand and so far so good.i called cuddyback and spoke to anyone that would listen and the only thing they said to fix it was send another 100 bucks and we will take care of it.
Hey Ross George doesn’t have a problem except for the worthless camera he now owns and can”t use !!!! I have the same problem. JUNK !!!! I have owned cuddeback digitals since they first came out.Those first models were great couldn’t get enough of em. Since that time quality has gone in the crapper. Every new model that came out got worse. You can bet the farm that I won’t buying anymore cuddeback products !!! From the looks of this review site it appears as though you got lucky with your camera. I could go on and on about the problems I have had lately with these cameras but I think you get the picture cause mine don’t
I bought three of these cameras and two broke right after the first few months, after repair the repaired one broke again
and now not under waranty they want almost
the price of a new one for repair.
Tryed to speek with manager five times and won,t even return my calls.
Don,t buy this junk
I was given a Cuddeback. It works fine with no compact flash card.
Here is everything the “manual” (I use the term loosely) has to say about the size of compact flash cards:
Page 7: “You can use any kind of Compact Flash card.”
Page 24: “Cuddeback will format 64 MB cards and higher as FAT32.”
NOWHERE on the “manual” or in the pathetic website’s “support” area is there one f$%#@*& word about limits to the size of the CF card. But a web search turns up hundreds of people who have been screwed by Cuddeback’s neglecting to tell them that the POS won’t work with a card greater than 1 GB.
These people suck, their products suck, and I’m going to trash their name every time I get the chance.
Hi Everyone,
It was marked down to $120 and that is the last Cudde model made in Wisconsin so I went for it. I soon discovered the memory card wouldn’t go in all the way and obviously it wouldn’t transfer pictures to the card and seemed to take forever to go through all the functions even when the card wasn’t in the camera. Lo & Behold I looked inside the card reader and all the wire prongs were totally bent to hell. I could have taken it back to the store, but I really wanted that camera and to get it working. It’s one of those things that sometimes you will take your chance and stick with a problem hoping for the best rather than give up right away. I called Cudde and I was told they wouldn’t warranty it even though I just bought it. They said it is now outdated and because of the card reader wires being messed up that voided the warranty. They said they would fix it for $150. I was really pissed! I found a local Electronic Specialist who said he would see what he could do for me. He straightened out all those prongs so that card goes in and out with no problems. He also wired up positive and negative wires so I can hook it up to a external battery and not have to mess with changing the poorly designed D-Cell battery setup on that camera. Unlike Cuddeback, he only charged me $40 for all he did! I’ve only had that camera for a month, but that camera takes the nicest pictures of any camera I’ve ever own. My capture pics are nice but the expert pics are fantastic. I am extremely careful putting in that Compact Card because I realize it’s a poor design. You start out very gently lining it up so it just sticks and then apply equal pressure till it snaps into place. I love that camera, not because it’s a cudde but because I didn’t give up on it and because of the quality it is now giving me, plus one of the last made in USA Cudde’s.
It’s been awhile since I posted and my Capture IR is still working fine. I wish you guys had the same luck. Cudde owners are kind of like Harley owners. It’s a great camera that will take outstanding pictures and has the best trigger speed on the market, but unfortunately because of the design and some hidden problems, you may encounter problems. Yes, the mounting design really sucks, but if you are inventive you will find a way to mount it perfect to that tree. One of the main problems not many people know about is the CARD. It tells you, that you may use UP to a 2 GB card. You can use a 2 GB and it will take twice as many pics as a 1 GB but the problem I had is you get many pictures that you can’t open. I went to a 1 GB Card and a 512 MB card and haven’t had any problems since. I haven’t had one bad picture since using those smaller cards. The 512 MB seems better as far as trigger speed performance but you only get half as many pictures. The big problem is those 2 cards are hard to come by and you are lucky if you can get them now.
The other problem I hear some people complaining about are the black pictures. That will happen when your batteries get weaker but still have enough power to take daytime pictures. You see, the flash and IR take much more power. Daytime operation only takes a small fraction of the battery power needed at night, so you will still get day pics but your flash or Ir won’t work at night if batteries are slightly weak. If you had your camera for awhile and not worried about returning it, I suggest hooking up a positive and negative wire to the battery terminals and drilling a small hole just big enough for wires to go on the bottom of camera and sealing it up good. Then you can hook it up to a 6 volt tractor battery and not have to worry about those problems even in the frigid winter months. That’s your call, but works fantastic for me. Just don’t hook the positive and negative wrong or your camera is fried!
Here’s another problem I encountered that may help people with the Expert Model. I just recently bought an Expert that was returned and sitting on the stores shelf for over a year because no one wanted to take the chance except me
HI
I PURCHASED TWO IR CAMERS AND HAVE NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS WITH BOTH OF THEM. THEY WILL NOT TAKE PICTURES WHEN TEMP IS BELOW 37 DEGREES OR ABOVE 82 DEGREES. EVEN WITH NEW BATTERIES LIKE ENERGIZER, DURACELL. BUY SOMETHING WITH SMALLER BATTERIES THEY ARE MUCH BETTER. VERY DISSAPOINTED.
KEN
My CUDDYBACK IR quit working after 7 months.(Actually I only used it a month and a half) Sent it to Cuddy and they said the batteries had leaked and they would not honor the warranty. I guess if you put the batteries right next to the electronics you take a good chance of ruining your camera if a battery would leak. How would you know if a battery is leaking unless you checked them everyday. Might be Cuddebacks plan to get out of manning up to their warranty. Just tell everyone that a battery leaked and its not covered under the warranty. My Primos Truth Cam 35 isolates the batteries from the electronics so if you would have a battery leak, no problem. When I removed the batteries in February after 1 1/2 months, one of the Duracells was leaking a little, not bad. Anyway, Cuddeback wants me to spend $150 for a Cuddeback Attack IR to replace my Capture IR.
I plan on telling everyone about Cuddebacks design flaw, poor customer support, and not to waste your money on Cuddebacks products.
Cuddie back will never see a dime of my money again, Bought 2 and in Florida they will not take pics in weather with temps over 80 degrees. Try summer scouting with a fast trigger speed camera that only takes pics when game is 10 feet or less away. Guess the faster trigger speed is needed since it has to be quick to catch a pic within 10 feet. Poor customer service might as well change names since this one is so bad here.