9 Best Trail Cams of 2023

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These clever gadgets are the perfect addition to your outdoor setup, whether you’re scouting your favorite hunting spots or just curious about the critters that cruise through your yard at night.

Trail cameras have evolved over the past few decades from expensive, niche products for only the most hardcore hunters into easy-to-use consumer products used by thousands of hunters all over the country. Because of the ease of use, they’re also used by plenty of non-hunters and folks just interested in what might be eating their tomato plants or passing through the backyard at night.

The right trail camera for you will depend on several factors including where, when, and why you use it, your budget, how important image quality is to you, and how high-tech you want to go. The increased popularity of these cameras means new features and models debut each year and more companies enter the market. For consumers, tighter competition equals better trail cam options for a lower price point.

To help you choose the right trail cam for your needs, we highlighted the most important features to look for and narrowed down our list to the best models for each type of user and budget.

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One of the main divisions in the trail camera market is whether the unit connects to a cellular network, which allows it to wirelessly send images to your phone. Networked cameras provide nearly real-time information from your camera(s), but there’s increased cost and setup complexity. However, connected models are so common that AT&T and Verizon offer monthly service plans that often come bundled with the camera.

Alternatively, there are plenty of trail cams that save photos and videos to local storage—typically an SD card—as well as models that transmit photos to your phone via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. These are typically more affordable than cellular options, but require more effort to retrieve your imaging.

This might seem like a minor detail, but given that most people want their trail camera to capture subjects without alerting them to the camera’s presence, the camera’s exterior color can be an important factor. Since most trail cameras are marketed to hunters and are intended to be used outdoors, they generally come in solid earth tones or camouflage patterns. If you’re a hunter, you probably already have a good sense of what patterns are most appropriate for your area. If not, snap some photos of the trunks of the trees where you intend to mount the camera and compare them to the patterns on the cameras you’re considering.

Cameron Shrum, avid bowhunter and co-owner of C&K Archery in Frisco, Colorado, says, “People will get a good deal on a camera and not realize how important it is to have [it] match [their] habitat. The goal is to get pictures of animals without them knowing they are being watched, and when something is out of place, game animals have a tendency to figure it out.”

As a professional photographer and videographer, I can tell you megapixels aren’t everything. While they can be a decent clue to the quality of an image you can expect from a camera, lots of other factors, such as sensor size, trigger speed, shutter speed, pixel size, and more, contribute to the final image quality coming out of your trail cam.

The best way to gauge the quality of a trail camera’s actual camera is to look at real images from that camera. Online reviews on sites such as Amazon often include photos taken by real users and can be a great shortcut to evaluating image quality. While trail cameras rarely take print-worthy shots, I’ve definitely come to appreciate the better-quality images produced by my newer trail cameras, including 4K videos, compared to the relatively crude and fuzzy images generated by my first trail cams.

Trail cams are motion-activated, so the importance of a fast trigger should be fairly obvious. You want the camera to snap a photo as quickly as possible when the motion trigger is activated in order to best capture the subject. Imagine a deer running full-tilt past your trail camera. If the camera takes nearly a second to actuate, that deer may not even appear in the camera’s frame. A good standard to shoot for is 0.5-second trigger or faster.

Since trail cameras are often left alone for days, weeks, and sometimes months, you want to be sure that your camera is set up properly. Not only do you want to choose a location where you expect your desired subjects to pass through, you also want to position the camera so it has a clear line of sight on a fairly broad area. Hiding a trail camera in a dense thicket means you’ll get pictures only when something passes right in front of the camera.

Shrum of C&K Archery recommends testing your trail cam before you walk away. “Have it snap a few pictures with you walking by and then review them. Sometimes you may not have the right angle; it may be too high or too low. Try to set the height and angle to capture the game in the center of the camera’s view.”

Testing can also reveal if you have any technical issues. Sometimes you may need to format your memory card in order for it to save photos and video, or you might see an incorrect date/time stamp and realize that you forgot to set those parameters.

I recommend using only lithium batteries in trail cameras. Especially with cheaper cameras, I have found that regular alkaline batteries don’t provide enough voltage for the IR flash and, many times, a trail camera may not record video with underpowered batteries (alkaline batteries start decreasing in voltage as soon as you start using them). Lithium batteries deliver higher voltage consistently, and they work better in the cold.

If you’re setting up a cellular trail cam, make sure you check signal strength in the area. If you have a camera that offers an app or website (as many now do) that lets you view images on your smartphone, try triggering the camera and see if you receive the notification and image.

Most trail cameras are reasonably weatherproof, but it still makes sense to find a somewhat sheltered location. Rain and snow can temporarily obscure your trail camera’s lens and ruin some great images, and direct sun hitting your triggers can lead to empty images or throw the camera’s sensors off. Try to avoid lots of plants or branches in the immediate foreground as wind-triggered movement from them can lead to empty images as well.

My selections here were based on conversations with other hunters, Cameron Shrum of C&K Archery, who uses and sells trail cameras for hunters, and from my own firsthand experience testing dozens of models of trail cameras. I usually set trail cameras a month or two before I intend to hunt an area, and leave them.

As the season draws nearer, I review results and generally start moving cameras around to new spots for shorter periods of time as I start spending more time in the woods. Because I like having several cameras that I check manually, I favor cheaper, simpler cameras so my trail camera budget doesn’t go overboard, but I do know hunters who use only expensive, connected cameras because they live more than an hour from their hunting grounds and want to stay up on the images being captured.

I focused my selections on the more common brands that show up in outdoors stores such as Cabela’s and local outdoor shops in North America as well as online. Our category picks offer guidance if you’ve already narrowed down your search.

For more great outdoor gear, check out our picks for the best ladder stands and the best one-person tents.

For hunting and scouting purposes, this trail camera is reliable and affordable enough to buy several. It also has specs that are beyond those offered by most traditional trail camera brands, including 4K video and crisp 30-megapixel images.

The trigger speed is about as fast as you can get at 0.2 seconds. Also, the internal LCD viewing screen is good enough to review images and even zoom in on details, which is a big help in setting up your camera and can save you the hassle of swapping memory cards.

While there are even cheaper trail cams available, most don’t have the image quality of this camera, and for some the clarity of the images is enough to pay a small premium. The Walmart listing often features steep discounts and coupons, making it a great camera for less than $100.

While the specs are a bit below our Best Overall pick, this budget option from GardePro delivers quality images for half the cost of cameras from better-known brands. While it may be a budget camera, it still takes 20-megapixel images, records 1080p HD video, and uses a Sony image sensor. The trigger on the motion detection is also really fast at 0.1 seconds, so animals on the move won’t speed past before the camera wakes up.

The internal LCD allows you to easily browse menus, set up your camera, and review images without removing cards or having to connect a phone or computer. The Garde also has a convenient Operation Hours feature if you prefer to set it only to capture images at certain times of day or night. It’s also a fairly light camera at 1.17 pounds, so it’s not a bear if you need to take it farther afield in a pack.

Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi connectivity is becoming more common in trail cameras and can be more convenient than pulling SD cards or reviewing images on a small digital screen inside the trail camera. It makes sense, right? Your $1,000 smartphone screen is going to be way clearer than any trail cam display.

I have used this trail camera from GardePro and found it most useful close to home, where we often set up yard cameras to see who is coming through at night and causing trouble. Often I can simply cue up the app from inside the house or on the deck, wake up the camera via low-power Bluetooth that's always on, then connect via Wi-Fi to download any new pictures (usually in a couple minutes at most). All without ever touching the camera or SD cards.

For cameras I place farther afield (say, in my hunting zones), I don’t often use the wireless connectivity even if the camera has it. There are several steps to connecting and downloading to the phone, which all take time. Plus, every trail camera app I’ve ever used has had quirks.

In the field, I’d rather swap memory cards or even download manually to my phone using a USB card reader. That said, this feature is a huge convenience if you hate messing with cards or have trouble reviewing images on small screens. I found that the Wi-Fi antenna on this Garde model allows for fast transfer speeds and connects from distances over 50 feet.

While your average birdwatcher might not care to spend over $300 on a wildlife camera, serious hunters and those who use them for security will. The Tactacam Reveal sends imagery directly to your phone, moments after capture, allowing you to monitor areas completely remotely, removing the need to physically visit each game camera to collect media.

The Reveal also boasts impressive capabilities such as 24-megapixel images and the ability to take images on-command remotely as well as change menu settings from your phone. Data plans are required at a recurring cost starting at $5 per month, and you can choose between Verizon and AT&T during setup, depending on which carrier has better service in the area you’re placing the camera.

Many trail cameras feel like versions of the same thing, even when they’re from different brands. The BOG Blood Moon camera has several unique features that set it apart from the herd, including a removable viewing dock, optional rechargeable battery pack, and lots of image metadata and moon phases and barometric pressure.

The pull-out 3-inch viewing dock is the most obvious difference from run-of-the-mill cameras. While this might seem gimmicky if you’ve never used a game camera, it means you can view your camera’s images without taking the camera down. The larger screen size means you can actually evaluate the images in the field without needing a special reader or phone connection.

If you want to capture high-quality video footage, the Vikeri 4K 32MP Trail Camera is a budget-friendly option that shoots 4K—or 2160p—video. It can also capture clear 32-megapixel photos with a 0.2-second trigger time, ensuring you don’t miss any animals that wander by.

The camera has no-glow infrared LEDs that allow it to capture clear footage at night as well, and there’s a 2.4-inch color LCD screen that allows you to quickly view any captured images right on the camera. However, because it’s a more budget-friendly model, this trail cam doesn’t offer any Wi-Fi or Bluetooth abilities to connect directly to your phone.

The Meidase P60 Trail Camera captures extremely high-quality images, especially given its reasonable price point. You’ll be able to review 32-megapixel images and 1296p video captured at 30 frames per second, all on the camera’s 2.4-inch color display.

The unit has a fast 0.1-second trigger speed, and it stores video footage in H.264 MP4 format, which takes 80 percentF less storage space. The camera requires a full-size SD card, and it doesn’t have any Wi-Fi or Bluetooth abilities, so you’ll have to manually download imagery onto your phone or computer.

A lesser-known option that makes sense for folks placing a number of cameras on a single property is to use a set of locally networked trail cameras.

The CuddeLink system pairs multiple cameras in a local network. A central camera then transmits images via cellular network on a single data plan. This can save you a lot of dough on data plans when compared to paying individually for data plans for each single camera. The main drawback is that it takes heavy D-cell batteries.

The convenience of a network-connected camera is obvious, but so is the downside: cost. However, if you need a cellular trail camera and budget is holding you back, look at the Spypoint Link Micro, which costs around $125—on par with many budget game cameras that don’t have cellular capabilities.

Making it even more attractive is that Spypoint even has a free data transfer plan that lets you receive up to 100 images per month without incurring a recurring fee. Upgrade plans are reasonable as well, with 250 images per month costing only $4 and unlimited photos for $10.

The specs on this camera aren’t amazing—it has a 10-megapixel image ceiling and a fairly pedestrian half-second trigger speed—but if you need lots of connected cameras on a budget and just need functional imagery, the Link Micro fits the bill.

Camryn Rabideau is a freelance writer and product reviewer specializing in home, kitchen, and pet products. In her four years as a product tester, she's tested hundreds of items firsthand, and her work appears in publications such as Forbes, USA Today, The Spruce, Food52, and more.

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