00:00Thank you for listening.
01:22So, whilst I've got a few other projects on the go, and I'm waiting for those to come
01:29to fruition, about 10 days ago I came down to this beautiful woodland here, that I'm
01:39currently trying to fight my way through, to set up the camera trap, the DSLR camera
01:48trap, and a couple of trail cams, because I haven't done that in a fairly long time,
01:55to see what I might be lucky enough to capture on the cameras.
02:00This is a fantastic woodland, and it's looking beautifully overgrown right at the moment,
02:07with spring in full swing.
02:10And there's golden jackal, badger, fox, martin, wildcat, red squirrels even, all kinds of
02:22wonderful creatures, lots of bird life here too, which you can probably hear.
02:31So, I'll get to the camera now, hopefully, if I can find my way back through again where
02:37I put it, and I'll get back to you in just a second.
02:43Hopefully we'll have something recorded on it.
02:45We shall see.
02:48Bear with me.
02:52Everything still seems to be intact.
02:56I have the camera down here, one of the flashes there.
03:02Another one is behind these trees here.
03:05There's a backlight.
03:06There's a little trail camera up there, and another one here, surveying the whole scene.
03:13So, what I'm trying to do is capture them.
03:16There's an animal trail just down here.
03:18So, I'm trying to capture the animals as they come through there.
03:24So, let me just log on to the trail camera, and I'll check that first before venturing in
03:32to see if there's anything on the DSLR.
03:34I also wanted to test out the, I was forwarded these rechargeable AA batteries, which are
03:44by a company called X-Tar, and they're 4,150 mAh rechargeable AA batteries.
03:54So, I've loaded four of them into one of the flash units, and four of the normal ones I
03:58use, which are, I think, 3,000, 3,200 mAh.
04:03So, we'll see if those have lasted the 10 days that I've left the cameras out here, and
04:07see how they compare to each other in terms of lasting power.
04:10We'll check that out in a second as well.
04:13So, I'm just connecting to the trail cam.
04:191, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 triggers.
04:27Oh, I've got a Martin.
04:32Oh, and a Jackal.
04:38It's in the wrong place to trigger the, uh, the camera there.
04:54And another Jackal during the day time.
04:59Ahem.
05:04So, I can't see that the, uh, DSLR has triggered at all.
05:08So, I'll turn the trail cams off so they're not recording me, and, uh, have a look at the
05:16DSLR and see if there's anything on there.
05:18I'll also check if the flashes are still triggering.
05:20So, one second.
05:48So, I'm leaving the figures off all the time.
05:53I'm going to run out of back then.
06:02And the battery's died on the camera.
06:04Amazingly enough.
06:05Let me just put a new one in.
06:17There's only 37 exposures on here.
06:24I've got a rather poorly lit shot of the Martin.
06:30And a bad shot of the Jackal.
06:33It's a shame, because that could have been nice.
06:36It's sort of double exposed to something.
06:47Amazingly, the flash is working.
06:51I shall switch out the cards.
06:56Uh, switch out the batteries.
07:00Okay.
07:02And let it go again.
07:28Let's go again.
07:42See that's all reset, batteries changed, cards changed.
07:49I reset the camera settings and I changed the luminance level for triggering the sensor.
08:06So I've put a 30th of a second at f8 exposure, manual exposure, manual focus on the DSLR.
08:15Hopefully that will give me enough speed to, with the strobe effect of the flashes, to freeze
08:23the motion of the jackal if it comes through again and we'll see how it goes.
08:31So the camera's been out in a total of about three weeks and it's been about five or six
08:38days since I last visited.
08:43So hoping the batteries have lasted.
08:45We've also had some horrific thunderstorms, lightning, torrential downpours.
08:52So I'm hoping it's survived all of that and managed to take some pictures in the process,
08:59we'll see.
08:59So I'm just going to go in now and check on it.
09:04Depending on whether I have caught something and if it's good.
09:09I might even pack up and find another location or switch out cards and batteries and leave
09:18it in place, we'll see.
09:19So I shall catch up with you in a second at the camera.
09:22I'm still fighting my way through the forest to get to the camera and on my way in I found
09:33this amazing little nest with the eggs and it's really low down on this bush.
09:52So I'm hoping it will survive.
09:56Obviously the branch has fallen a bit with the heavy rain, so I'm hoping the parent birds,
10:04whatever they are, I have no idea what kind of nest that is, whose nest it is.
10:11But isn't that wonderful?
10:13Hopefully if the parents are around, they will survive.
10:17Okay, on to the camera.
10:20I just had a quick look connected on my phone to the two solar powered trail cams that I've set
10:28up.
10:29And it looks like the majority of triggers has been from this bloomin' blackbird that keeps
10:35landing right in the middle of frame on the log there, the fallen log.
10:40There was a couple of triggers from red squirrel, which is nice.
10:45Not sure I got a shot of it on the DSLR though.
10:49And there was one trigger I saw of a martin where the camera fired.
10:55No sign of the jackals.
10:57One did appear behind the camera which I caught on the trail cam, on this trail cam over here,
11:03with the wide angle of the scene.
11:06But none have actually passed through along the path where the DSLR is.
11:13So I'll just open up the back of the DSLR and see what we might have got on there.
11:17So bear with me a sec.
11:25Just check on the battery and see if it's still firing.
11:34So amazingly, the X-Star batteries that I put in here, the new ones that were sent to me,
11:40the 4,150 milliamp power ones, they're still firing.
11:45I don't think the other one is though.
11:48So that's quite impressive that they still fire.
11:53So if you're interested in those batteries, I'll put a link in the description below for
11:58you to have a look at those if you're interested in getting them.
12:02It's 148 triggers.
12:05Oh, that's a nice shot of the martin.
12:08I think.
12:10It's right on the edge of frame.
12:19It could be better compositionally, but I still like it.
12:22We'll see what it looks like on the laptop.
12:24I'll show you that in a second.
12:29Okay, so out of 148 shots, two are of the martin.
12:35And the rest are all blackbirds.
12:38Okay, so.
12:47What to do?
12:49Because I don't want to keep getting shots of blackbirds.
12:56Right, I'll reset everything.
13:00Leave it for another week and then reassess.
13:04I might change the composition slightly as well.
13:09And bring the camera around to the side here.
13:17Okay, bear with me whilst I do that.
13:21Okay, so I finished resetting that.
13:24I set the camera to look along the fallen tree, this log here.
13:32So before I was looking in this direction at the animals that would have come up down this track.
13:39And now I've switched it to this position here.
13:43So it's looking along this log here.
13:46The pier sensor is where it was.
13:49The flash guns are where they were.
13:53Both now with the X-Star longer lasting batteries, as soon as they've done so well.
14:02I'll link to those, like I said, in the description below as well as to some of the other equipment
14:07that I'm using here.
14:08Some of the mounts, the kit I use to actually make the camera trap housings, etc.
14:15All that will be linked below if you're interested in checking that out.
14:20I will close out this video at this point, otherwise it'll get too long.
14:26And I'll show you hopefully the results from this reset session now in the next video.
14:35And whatever I got in terms of trail cam footage and the couple of shots from the DSLR will be
14:43coming up in a second.
14:45So, yeah, thank you so much for watching and following along.
14:49I do hope you've enjoyed and I shall see you again soon.
14:52Bye for now.
15:00Bye for now.
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