Jacob MurphyIt’s not only hunters and outdoorsmen that are looking at good game cameras lately. Many homeowners have realized that a good game camera can be used to keep an eye out on your back yard in the dark as well.
Now, whichever one of those categories you are, if you’re looking at the Moultrie A5 Low Glow game camera, you’re very likely looking for a budget-friendly variant that has a good reputation and will be reliable. These kinds of cameras are hard to come by, especially those that perform well.
However, the Moultrie A5 aims to be a great seller, offering a good set of features with a minimal amount of cutting corners. It’s also one of the most beginner-friendly game cameras, which is great. Without wasting any more of your time, let’s dive into our Moultrie A5 Low Glow game camera review, and see whether it’s worth your time and money.
The Moultrie A5 on the outside
There’s a very high chance that you’ll want to hide your game camera, and Moultrie has thought of that. This is a relatively small, fairly lightweight camera, so you can put it just about anywhere. To begin with, it comes with a weight of only 1.6 ounces, so you can attach it to pretty much anything, and it won’t fall down. As far as the size goes, the camera is 7.5 x 9.5 x 5 inches. Even though there is definitely smaller game cams out there, it’s still a very reasonable size. The fact that it’s a tad larger also means that you’ll be able to find it more easily if you leave it somewhere in the woods.
Another interesting element on the outside is the paint job of the camera itself. Namely, it comes in a brownish color with a wood-like texture. Even though there’s a variety of uses for it, it will most certainly feel right at home upon a tree. There’s also little to no chance that an animal can see it, because it blends in with that kind of environment really well.
You will also find that the Moultrie A5 has a power port on the outside as well. While this may not be too useful if you’re leaving it out in the woods, it can certainly change things quite a bit for home use. If you’re using it to monitor your back yard, you could keep it plugged in. On the other hand, if you intend to leave it somewhere outside, you can expect around 8,000 pictures on one full charge. While this may not sound like too much, if you set a longer time interval between two pictures, it will last quite a bit.
Let’s discuss the feature set
If you were to take a look at the specifications, you would see that the Moultrie A5 Low Glow has a 5.0-megapixel infrared sensor. While manufacturers may try to use this number as an overall indication of the picture quality of a camera, there’s actually a lot more to it. For starters, 5.0 megapixels is not bad at all, especially in a situation where you don’t need an extraordinary amount of details. It will do the job very well – and indeed the A5 does do a great job.
Then, you have the flash range, which is another major factor in terms of image quality. The A5 comes with a claimed 50 feet nighttime illumination range. In practice, however, you will get a slightly lower range. Therefore, if you’re going to be using it near the end of the range, chances are you will notice a drop in image quality. Use it for shorter distances, such as 20 to 40 feet, and you’ll be getting great image quality. There are enough details to distinguish people and animals, which makes the Moultrie a very usable budget game camera. The image quality is thanks to the included long-range 850nm Infrared sensor, which works really well.
Are there any extra features worth talking about?
Sure enough, with this being a budget game camera, you would expect it to just cover the basics for the asking price. However, Moultrie has gone a step further, and have given you a few customization options for your pictures.
To begin with, you can choose whether you’d like a moon phase, date, time and camera ID stamp on your pictures. If you have multiple cameras set up in various places, this could be very beneficial when you need to keep track of the pictures.
Then, there’s also the picture delay setting. You can choose from 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 30 minutes. This is where things get a bit tricky, though. If you set it up at 1 minute, and use it on its own battery, you’re only getting around five and a half days, which is not really practical. Therefore, we’d advise using the 1 and 5-minute settings only if you have it plugged into a continuous power source. The other two settings are great for leaving the camera outdoors, as setting it up at 10 minutes gives you around a month and a half of battery life.
Wrapping things up
Once you consider everything about the Moultrie A5 Low Glow, and factor in the price, you realize you’re getting a lot of camera for your money. You have a decent sensor, good image quality at shorter distances, and quite a lot of versatility in terms of setting it up. You can use it during the day, or during the night, and it works for everything from game, to backyard surveillance.
If you’re looking for long ranges, this may not be the best game camera out there. But if you only need a short-range and want to save a few bucks, the Moultrie A5 is certainly the way to go. Check out our Best List if you are looking for more options.
