Recommended Camera Settings for DSLR Camera Traps

There is quite an art to setting your camera to automatically capture well-exposed photos both day and night. To get you started, the following settings will usually work quite well:

• Manual exposure mode
• Shutter: 1/250s - Fast enough to freeze motion but any faster and your flashes may not sync.
• Aperture: f/8 or f/11 - Gives you plenty of depth of field.
• ISO: Auto - If possible, limit the maximum ISO to 800 or 1,600 so you don’t get too much noise.
• Single shot mode (to avoid strobe-flashing nocturnal creatures).
• Manual focus - focus on the point where the animal is likely to be detected by your sensor.
• Set the flash output manually so that the scene is correctly exposed at night (use the trial and error approach!)

These settings work because at night, the camera will select a high ISO and you can get away with using low-powered flashes. During the day, the camera will select a lower ISO to expose the scene and the flashes will then just provide a small amount of fill-light.