Trail Camera Card Reader Problems and Solutions

Trail camera SD card viewers are one of the best new gadgets for reading your trail camera cards. However, they do have some problems that deer hunters have identified. Al Kaiser, today the president and the founder of the Hunters Mate LOWDOWN Trail Camera Viewer, and his family were using 20 trail cameras each deer season. The first problem they identified was that they didn’t have enough time to view all their trail cameras’ pictures quickly. They began to wonder if there was any point in using that many cameras or not. So, Kaiser spent seven years developing the best trail camera card reader he could, the LOWDOWN Viewer.

Problem 1: I wondered why trail camera card readers didn’t develop a quicker way for hunters to view and save large numbers of trail camera videos and pictures and/or delete the trail camera card readers’ pictures and videos that didn’t provide information for them. Also, if you look at your trail camera SD cards in the field, generally you only can see small pictures that may not reveal all the animals in the photos, especially if the pictures have been taken after dark. So, then you must wait until you return home and put the images on your computer’s screen to better see the animals in the photographs. 

Answer: With the LOWDOWN Trail Camera Viewer we’ve developed, you can look at the pictures on a nine inch screen as soon as you take the card out of a trail camera and insert it into the LOWDOWN Viewer in your tree stand, at home, in your hunting camp or your motel room or in your car to learn what animals your trail cameras have photographed. You can view 1,000 photos in 20-30 minutes.

Being able to pull your cards from your trail cameras and review them quickly after a scouting trip is a feature of  the LOWDOWN Viewer that gives the hunter a definite advantage.

Problem 2: You can’t save those you’ve chosen with trail camera card readers. So, how do you save the photos you want to look at more closely on your card viewer for viewing later? 

Answer: With the LOWDOWN Viewer, there’s a separate slot where you can put a card that we call your ‘Save Card’ in and transfer the pictures you want to keep and look at later from the viewer onto that card. Then you can insert the SD Save Card into your home computer or laptop and keep the images in file folders or send those pictures to friends, family and/or hunting partners. 

Problem 3: Some trail camera card readers on the market are difficult to use. When you take your SD card out of your trail camera and put it in your reader, you can look at the photos while in your tree stand to see how many bucks and does the trail camera has photographed the night or day before you’ve gone to your stand. However, once again, the images are so small that you may miss seeing the biggest buck that’s passed in front of your trail camera because he may be in the darker portion of the picture. With other trail camera card readers, you have no way to brighten-up or enlarge the photo you want to look at, since the screens on most trail camera readers are so small. 

Answer: The LOWDOWN Viewer has a nine-inch screen that gives you a much-larger picture of what your trail camera has photographed, and you can brighten the screen to show more details in the dark parts of the images. We, offer the largest screen on a trail camera viewer in the industry. Our new card reader – the LOWDOWN Viewer is very easy to use and weighs approximately 1- to 1-1/4 pounds. The viewer is installed in a leather case that acts as a stand and protection for the viewer. The viewer also comes with two chargers. One charger enables you to plug into house current, and the other charger can plug into your cigarette lighter to charge the battery from your vehicle. So, no matter where you are, you can keep your viewer charged-up. From one charge, you’ll get approximately four hours of viewing time. Also, if you have a place to plug in either one of the chargers, you can look at your photos all day long, while the viewer is being charged. 

Daylight photos are not only sharp and colorful, but with the LOWDOWN Viewer, you can brighten them to even see the small yearling at the far back of the photo that may have been blacked-out using other readers.

Problem 4: You can’t select the pictures you want to keep on the trail camera card reader with most card readers. With card readers other than the LOWDOWN Viewer, you must put the SD card in your computer and then select the images you wish to keep or delete. 

Answer: You can do this type of editing and store the pictures you want to keep on your Save Card with the LOWDOWN Viewer. and you can swipe through and view 1,000 photos in 20-30 minutes. This feature allows you to eliminate photos you don’t want to keep, without having to put your trail camera card in your computer. 

Problem 5: Most trail camera card readers don’t save photos and/or videos to high definition. 

Answer: The LOWDOWN Viewer saves the pictures from your trail camera SD card at the exact resolution the camera has taken them. This is also true for videos that your trail camera may take. The LOWDOWN Viewer screen is a high-definition screen that reproduces beautiful color for daytime shots and videos and black-and-white photos for those taken at night, allowing you to see your pictures more clearly on this high-definition screen. 

The LOWDOWN Viewer isn’t a one-trick pony, but also can take sharp photos to let you see where turkeys are feeding.

Problem 6: With many, other trail camera card readers, you must scroll through all the photos to get to either the beginning or the end of the photos taken. 

Answer: On the LOWDOWN Viewer, a scroll button on the bottom of the screen allows you to instantly go to the beginning or the end of all the pictures stored in the Viewer with a swipe of your finger, even if you have 5,000 photos on your card. 

Problem 7: Often, game camera card readers require a lot of time to load all the pictures, especially if you have numbers of photos on your trail camera SD card. 

Answer: The LOWDOWN Viewer has the fastest-loading speed of any card reader today. If only 200 pictures are on your trail camera SD card, they’ll load into the LOWDOWN Viewer in seconds. If you have 5,000 images, 1 to 1-1/2 minutes may be required to download all the pictures to begin viewing them. 

Problem 8: Another problem associated with trail camera viewers is how well they hold-up in rugged terrain and rain. Is the LOWDOWN Viewer waterproof, and how rugged is it?

Answer: We’ve protected the LOWDOWN Viewer in a water-resistant case. I’ve used it in a sprinkling rain before. However, if you drop it in a lake or a body of water, you’ll probably destroy the device. Field tests have proven that when the LOWDOWN Viewer has been dropped from 20 feet up in a tree stand to the forest floor, it isn’t damaged. But if you drop it on asphalt or concrete, the screen may crack.

If you keep your trail cameras up all year, you can watch the antler development of your bucks prior to the season with your LOWDOWN Viewer and also show those photos to your hunting buddies.

Problem 9: Often, even the best sd card readers don’t have very-good warranties. 

Answer: The LOWDOWN Viewer has a one-year warranty. The company will repair anything that goes wrong during that one-year warranty. The screens aren’t warranted because you may drop the device and break the screen. But the company can replace the screens.

Other Important Information

If you’re wondering how quickly you can get this trail camera card reader by ordering it from either the website or a dealer, the viewer usually ships the next day. You should receive it in 1-3 business days, depending on the mail. If your LOWDOWN Viewer has a problem, and you ship it back, repairs are completed in 1-2 days from when it is received. 

Bright, clear photos in high definition allow you to count every point on a deer’s rack, and that’s what you can expect with the LOWDOWN Viewer.

Features and Benefits of the LOWDOWN Viewer

Here are the features and benefits you get with the LOWDOWN Viewer that other trail cam sd card readers may not have, including, you:

* can enlarge the pictures on the LOWDOWN Viewer screen to better view any animals in the background; 

* can plug the LOWDOWN Viewer into your big-screen television through an accessory cable and enlarge the photos;

* can put more videos on each card. LOWDOWN has developed a 64-gigabyte SD card primarily used for compressing videos. We also offer SD cards with 128 gigabytes, to enable you to store even-more videos on your SD card. You can use these SD cards in the Save Slot on your LOWDOWN Viewer;

* can reformat the SD card in the LOWDOWN Viewer to make the SD card like new; 

* can blow your pictures up as big as you want to view them, and the Viewer will take a picture of the enlarged photo that you can save on your Save Card in the Viewer; 

* can use a feature on the LOWDOWN Viewer that enables you to freeze-frame a portion of the video, take a picture of that frame and save it to the Save Card. You can enlarge portions of videos and save the enlargements you’ve created in the Viewer;

* have the ability to review 1,000 photos on the Viewer in 15-20 minutes; 

* can save any photo or video to your Save Card, enlarge that picture for more detail and save a snapshot of that enlarged photo or video to your Save Card; 

* can use the Viewer’s freeze-frame function for videos and can enlarge or save the stopped frame with the Snapshot Function to your Save Card;

* can use the LOWDOWN Viewer’s built-in Navigator Help System by plugging in your camera card, following the screen prompts and start viewing. You can swipe through images and videos with your finger. The Scroll Bar feature allows you to move from the start of your camera card to its end;  

* will have a Viewer that runs for four hours, and the LOWDOWN’S battery will cycle 400-500 times. You can charge your Viewer with the provided wall charger or the cigarette lighter plug-in; and 

* will have a leather case to protect the Viewer and its 9-inch HD color screen. 

John E. Phillips

John E. Phillips of Birmingham, Ala., has been a fulltime outdoor writer for the past 50+ years, covering hunting, fishing and other outdoor sports across the U.S. and in some foreign countries. John first visited Alabama’s Gulf Coast when only 2-months old and fished, hunted and camped with his older brother and his dad all his life and continues those family traditions with his children and grandchildren today. Visit John at www.amazon.com/author/johnephillips to learn more about his 100 books on Amazon.