For a couple of weeks I have left a game camera pointed at my front door, as a low cost surveillance camera. I wanted to see if I could document any unwanted persons there.

For this time, it dutifully recorded all the normal activities at our home. I did see three images of a cat that wandered by, which I didn't expect. Deliveries by Amazon and our farm-to-table food were also captured.

Yesterday, I alerted my next door neighbor that her mail would be in a box on my front porch. All day, the mail sat. At 8 pm, I took it back in. Today, at 1:57 am, I received a text from my next door neighbor who stated she could not find her mail on my front porch. Why she would be looking for her mail at 2 am at my front porch is not clear.

As she would have to traverse the game camera area, I expected to find her in about three frames. Nothing. Nothing.

I can only guess that she was
1. Moving so quickly that the camera could not react
2. So thermally cool that the camera did not see her
3. Not of this world, made of ether, mist, or dark matter.
4. Did not traverse the game camera detection zone, and somehow looked on my porch for the box from afar.

It is disappointing to find a real world example at 2 am where the camera apparently did not work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 4MUL8R,

I vote for #4. Maybe she used a flashlight to view the porch from a distance?

Maybe she texted you well after looking for the mail on your porch or vice versa, her text was delivered well after she sent it. I’ve had texts arrive to others several hours after they were sent, which would account for the wierd early morning timing. Either way, it would result in you having to check earlier times and not just 3 frames.

The bit about texts not making their journey to the receiver for hours is a good thought. I did find that the last image from yesterday was my entry to the home after dinner at Big Al's Sports Bar and Grill, at 1930. There were no other images on the card until this morning when I stumbled out there at 0555. She later texted me that she was in Fairfax until very late, visiting her college son.

What brand is the camera?
Even if she moved too fast, the camera still would have been triggered.
The sensors on the Bushnell look out and down so it is important to have the camera looking straight out if the terrain is flat.

I vote #4 as well. Test it by walking in from the side your neighbor would have walked in from. Do it at night with no additional light other than what would have been there when she came over. Or, is your porch lit at night such that she didn't have to walk all the way up to see that nothing was there?

Does your camera use an infrared motion detector and is it set to use it? We have a couple game cameras that will detect motion by comparing a frame with the previous frame and if there's a change above a certain threshold, it takes a picture. On windy days, they'll take hundreds of pictures of nothing but the weeds moving back and forth. This method doesn't work at night unless there is a light source. They have an infrared sensor as well. Maybe your camera uses both methods, but the infrared sensor is turned off or isn't working?

At 1930 it was dark here, when the last know image was captured last night. There are hundreds of images at night captured over the previous two weeks. Many at 2230 or later. Everyone that walks up to the front steps is captured, but image quality varies with weather. Humidity seems to fuzz up the images.

I have several of the cameras that text you pics when they are taken. I was sitting at a location on the ranch that had one of them, hunting hogs before deer season with a buddy. I nice buck came out and hung around for 10 plus minutes. He walked in front of the camera several times.....nothing. This is a $400+ top of the line game camera. It happens unfortunately and I certainly wouldn't count on a game camera for security,

#5 she's a vampire

dange, I don't know. Bet she was nekkid though

Invisibility Cloak?

Klingon Ship with Cloaking Device?

or she got you mixed up with the Mervin's , two doors down and plain old went to the wrong address.

I Use a program called Blue Iris which has motin detection features.

It took me like 2 months to get it set up right. The balance is false detections and not detecting things it should.

That said, I still record 24/7 in addition to the motion trigger features, just in case motion dtection misses something.

So, we forgot reason 5. The difference between men and women and communication. I told the neighbor I put the mail in a box on the porch. At 2 am, the neighbor, being female, interpreted that the box would be on her porch. Me, being the lazy neighbor and a man, meant that I put the box on my porch. Instead of coming over at 2 am, she looked on her porch from her front window. No traveling across the yard at 2 am. I feel better, as the game camera did NOT fail.

Based on the images from the game camera I relocated it to another vantage point. Will be interesting to see if I obtain better facial shots.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
So, we forgot reason 5. The difference between men and women and communication. I told the neighbor I put the mail in a box on the porch. At 2 am, the neighbor, being female, interpreted that the box would be on her porch. Me, being the lazy neighbor and a man, meant that I put the box on my porch. Instead of coming over at 2 am, she looked on her porch from her front window. No traveling across the yard at 2 am. I feel better, as the game camera did NOT fail.

Based on the images from the game camera I relocated it to another vantage point. Will be interesting to see if I obtain better facial shots.

See, THIS makes all the sense in the world! Mars and Venus folks, Mars and Venus.