Comments on: Cuddeback Capture

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:01:12 +0000

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.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:28:50 +0000

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.

By: KEN

KEN — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:03:01 +0000

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

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:14:36 +0000

Hi Everyone,
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 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.

By: gosper

gosper — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:57:41 +0000

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.

By: Larry

Larry — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:55:20 +0000

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

By: LARRY

LARRY — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:06:59 +0000

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

By: kenny young

kenny young — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:44:25 +0000

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.

By: Kathi Kinnear

Kathi Kinnear — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:55:37 +0000

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.

By: birddogbob

birddogbob — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:29:29 +0000

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.