Moultrie Micro-42 world's smallest trail camera??? Review and Field Testing w/sample photos videos 

Hey just wanted to let you know the camera does tell you the battery life. When you set it to the on position before it gives you the count down to close the camera and leave it displays the battery life. Example: (BL: 33) BL meaning battery life. Great video by the way!

I can live without certain options, but a battery life indicator is a must have. It makes me wonder sometimes who is the people in research and development. They're obviously not real hunters. That'd be like me advising NASA on the space shuttle. Another great review Dave. Thanks for being honest!

Hey Dave . Another great trail cam review. You are definitely my go to when it comes to trail cams. Thanks for taking the time to put all these reviews together.

Thanks for the heads up review, I’ve been eyeing these, didn’t pull the trigger on them because of the price and lack of options. Thanks again for being honest!!!

There are pros and cons to everything. Get the smaller size but seems it does have some drawbacks. Thanks for always making these objectively honest reviews.

It actually does tell you the battery level, at least mine does. When you exit setup menu and switch to the on setting to take photos or video it will say BL:99 of battery is full or what ever the battery level is. For instance 50% would be BL:50.

When you hit enter when the camera is in the on position it will tell you the amount of pictures.

Thank you for your honest review my friend

Another great review Dave! Really appreciate the cost analysis part - you give us a very understandable way to evaluate this camera!!

That's what I like I like the smaller ones because I have problems out in the woods with people

Really injoyed it amazing work you 👍 put in to your videos is amazing

Liked your pro and con presentation. Good review.

Thanks for another great review! Always appreciate your candor and expertise. -Brad

Hope ya have a great Father’s Day it’s definitely small

thanks for the review!

Good review Dave, and I agree with just about everything you touched on. I no fan of this camera, and it's a shame, Moultrie used to have fabulous cameras back in the day. I hope they're (Moultrie) is reading the comments on this video. Their old 999i was a great reliable camera and had the features I and other wildlife researchers needed... no-glow, good video at that time, good sound quality and ruggedness. Sadly as other trail cameras advanced and became better and better, Moultrie seems to have taking steps backwards. And in my opinion there are many trail cameras that out perform Moultrie trail cameras and cost MUCH less. That said this is tiny and compact, and the pictures are good... certainly no where close to 42 MP (Which is an absurd claim). This camera would be good for someone looking a small camera for photos only, but it loses out to much less expensive cameras even there. Moultrie, if you're listening... make an improved version of your 999i, with better video quality and good battery life that shoots quility video in 1080p with sound, and you would have a serious contender on the market. And you'd have me and other researchers and wildlife enthusiasts interested in a camera like that. Thanks Dave. You were hard, but fair in my opinion. Hope Moultrie steps up their game in regards to trail cameras.

For anyone wondering about lifetime. If you have new batteries in your camera, always check them after a month or two. Even if camera is still operating, swap the old batteries out with new ones.

These are good little cameras. I do wish the videos had sound but I have 3 42! And a 36 all have battery indicators on them. To view the battery level turn camera to on Position and it will display bl and the percent you have left. Thanks for the review. Glad I tried them.

great honest review brother

I like that it's small but would like to have a battery indicator and picture counter! Price should reflect the options! Thanks for your review buddy!

Seems to be more negative features than positives. It’s nice that it’s small and compact but without audio, battery indicator and poor quality video. Thanks for the review, Dave.

I do like the compact size of the camera but not sure if I have the right place for it. Thanks for the study it helps my decisions!

When you put the camera in the on setting it has a battery life indicator there.

that looks like it would be so easy to hide in the woods plus the security of it makes a nice choice for what I might want to use it for

Great review, thanks. It seems like it has lots of compromises to enable it to be small. On balance, I think I would rather have a larger camera with all the features.

Thanks for the info, thinking, Moultrie compact! But 79.99 is way too high. I was thinking somewhere around 39.00, would probably get two just to move around for scouting. See you next time..

Hey Dave. I agree with ever thing u said about it.Base line 📷 for a higher price. I was really not happy with mine.No way it a 42 MP CAMERA..Great review like always my Friend 👍

Just a comment on battery life. My 42i DOES in fact show battery life. You have to turn the cam off and then back on and it shows bl : 66. That stands for battery life : 66%. I don't know if there are other ways of checking it, but I do know by turning off and back on, battery life does work.

I like it,It’s simple

With the money I would just go with a larger quality trail cam. Thanks for the review.

The battery life indicator flashes when you turn it back to on after checking the sd card it says BL:99 Meaning you have 99% battery

The battery level is the BL number that pops up as soon as you select the knob to the on position

That sure is a small camera, great review Dave.

Thanks for another honest review, Dave. I guess if I were hauling 10 of them at one time to go place in the woods, I could see the value of paying more for the micro size. I don't do that though, and I doubt many guys do.

Thanks for the info. These are on clearance at my local Walmart. Probably gonna get them all as cheap cameras to put on public land.

Nice review. The cable locking the SD door would be a con for me. Sometimes I leave the camera on the tree and just swap the card. The pictures looked nice, but everything else was a con. Your paying for the name. I wonder when these companies will start making camouflage straps?

Im a fan of Moultrie products don’t think I’ve seen that one yet. Im actually working on a video about all the trail cameras I use. Probably be few weeks on it. I’ll be giving you a mention in it. 👍

Great honest review Dave! No battery level indicator?! Yikes! I think the pics are okay. I see a lot of companies only making cams with up to 720p resolution video and am curious why when 1080p should really be the minimum standard and with an option of both 30 and 60 FPS is always nice as well. I see a lot of trail cams now that market 4K but what some don’t realize that when 2.7K or 4K is only in 10/15/20 FPS your video will blur quite a bit with movement. Trail cam makers really need to work on that too! I am a bit off topic lol… another thing thing you mentioned is the ability for photo/video mode and it is lacking in this camera. I know a lot of people like that option but I always find that once the photos are taken and then the video function starts the subject is halfway through the field of view so I don’t use it for my purposes. All of my cameras have that feature except for the Brownings do not and for me like I said it is a non issue but others do like the feature for sure! The “no audio” is not good at all either! I am always searching for cameras with better audio! Audio makes the wildlife observation experience so much better. A compact camera could have benefits like you say like if putting quite a few out at once. Thanks for sharing Dave, Char 😊👍

These do have battery life indicators. I have 4 of them, they all display BL on initial start up/ set up

Dave we have done several camera reviews on our channel, so I know how hard these can be. You made it look and sound easy! Great job and great review. 2 Dumb Ass approved

This is on sale at Rural King for $47.

I'm not sure if you have ran into this, but my 42i stopped taking photos and could not read the card. After several frustrating minutes, I tried to format it. It wouldn't do that either. I saw that the little slide button on the side of the card was in the halfway position. I slid it up and camera works fine and I was able to format it.

THERE IS A WAY TO CHECK THE BATTERY LEVEL I didn't expect much from this cheap Chinese trail camera when I bought it. Picture quality is decent. I have not done videos yet. Here are a few things I do not like about the camera. The door is very hard to open and it is not camouflaged like the rest of the camera. Trigger speed is very good but it's too fast. The subject is captured way too early in the frame. And on a three picture burst, the pictures are WAY too close together. The spacing between the pictures should be around a second, not less than a second. On a three picture burst the three pictures appear as one, not three. To get around the fast trigger I taped over most of the motion sensor to get the subject closer to the middle of the frame. There is a battery level indicator on this camera. When you switch from setup to on there is a level indicator before it countdowns from 10 to 1 and then arms the camera. I wish Moultrie would bring back their M-80 trail camera. That was THE best trail camera the Chinese ever made.

Thanks for the review, it is very pleasant and complete. Taking into account everything you expose in the video, I think the model is not interesting. I was struck by the difference in quality between photos and video. Normally the quality of both things is equal and however in this model I see that the photos are much superior to the video. A greeting from Spain!

check to see if BL battery life shows up for 2 seconds when turned on

Good sharing

battery level shows when you first turn it on... example > BL 50%

Yeah I'd have to pass on this one BUT I like the case design and the size. Great review!

How can they advertise a sub second trigger time? You see a critter in the middle of the frame, but that's it? Did the critter move in at the speed of light, then come to a full stop to get it's pic taken?

Can I put in lithium batteries instead? Would that void warranty? Can I place rechargable batteries and just continuously charge with solar charger? If yes, how?

The menu on this camera is not much different than the $28.88 Walmart Tasco cameras. For $40 less you can get the Wosport Mini trail camera, & it will do everything this trail does for half the price. A large MP trail camera means nothing, & I wouldn't buy it based on that false marketing alone. A 12MP Tasco trail camera pics look just as good as or better than a 42MP camera in this case. Having to pull out the security cable every time I want to switch out SD cards would be a pain, but I am not using my cameras on public land. This camera would be somewhat appealing if it was a $30 camera. At approximately $80, Moultrie is marketing an overpriced camera thinking guys will be impressed by its small size and large MP. If you are setting the camera out for an entire hunting season, the size & a false MP claim means absolutely nothing. My biggest complaint about Tasco & other cheap cameras like this Moultrie are lack of a battery indicator & pic counter. You could have both dead batteries and no pics on the SD card, & you wouldn't know about either one until you check your SD card with a card reader device of some type. This camera represents most everything I hate about today's trail cameras (marketing hype for cheap junk). Give me an affordable 4-8MP trail camera that snaps decent day/night pics every 5 seconds. I have zero interest in wasting batteries on videos of squirrels, raccoons, bobcats, coyotes, leaves blowing in the wind, & whatever. I just want snap shot pics of what bucks are in the neighborhood. Awesome review of an overpriced cheap camera!

Do you need to turn the camera off before removing the SD card? I may have missed it, but didn’t see it in the instruction manual. I have other cameras that require them to be cut off or the SD card will be erased.

I get a pic count when I open it and hit the enter button.

Can you special order long lasting rechargeable batteries and place them instead of the regular ones it comes with? Can you just plug it in via the usb slot into an outside outlet to keep charged without any batteries in them (or at least to keep the rechargeable batteries fully charged at all times)?

And yes when you turn the camera to On. It tells you the battery life

I been thinking about ordering one of them to try this year hid you use it much

Great review, Dave. While it may work out for some, I'd have to pass on this camera myself. Right away the lack of audio, the extremely limited video time and the max 720p resolution makes it a non-starter for me. Not to mention, as you said, the high price for such low performance in these 3 areas. Again, as you mentioned, really the only thing it has going for it is that some people may have a need for a very small camera and if the goal is to get some kind of image in conditions where you don't want the camera to be seen it may fit the bill... however, being "low-glow" and not "no-glow" means that at night it might be detected. Again, great review Dave. I'm sure people watching this video can make a determination on whether this camera is for them or not. 👍 I'd add one more thing to the cons... while it's great that it will accept a python cable, it appears that in order to swap cards the cable has to be removed.

It is very small but I agree with most of the cons you listed. Most of the cons would keep me from buying it. I have a Moultrie WV-6000 cell cam and it isn't that great of a camera. I do love their app though. I have a Tactacam as well and I love the photos from it and the quality of the photos but the app isn't as great as the Moultrie.

This camera has a battery life indicator as soon as you turn it on. It displays “BL:99” for 99% battery life.

I did have my cam set at 00:15 now i set it to 00:00 how will that work? Before it took photos every 15 seconds. But i changed that setting to 0 how does that work?

Merhaba ürün için hangi piller uygun marka ismi yazarmisiniz

OK cheaper camera but takes better pictures what would it be

I'll have to disagree with a few of the cons he claims. Firstly there is a battery level indicator. If you properly read the manual you can see the option to view battery level. The video setting can take up to 1 minute long videos NOT 10 second videos as he claims. The night time videos are not the best and do shorten it's range by about 10-15ft however I feel it makes up for it with it's invisible flash as my others with false scare everything away. Does not do well in rainy conditions however and that's something he did not review. If you are having a rainy day I would strongly advise you to take it down, or make sure you have something in place for it to not get soaked. Other than that it's possibly the best trail cam I have. It is a bit pricey considering how basic it is but worth the price as it's the only ones I've yet to have someone steal and even in day light you can miss it not seeing where it's mounted. I use it mostly up near my house now to keep eyes on my live stock and what predators are coming around and I even was able to use it to catch someone poaching my animals in the middle of the night. Overall I'd give it a 7/10 star rating. Was worth the money

All of the cons are not really cons for me since what i am looking for is scouting information. None of those cons take away from that at all . Also, 80 is nowhere near a premium price . I would call 150 and up premium . 100 and under…. Not even worth looking at. That being said , I picked one up for $54 on sale .

All the namebrand tcams are hugely overpriced.

Psalm 127:1 KJV Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

What camera senses movement at more then 20 meters ??????

Mine doesn't work on video why is that?

Your video review is off. If you hold down the "Enter" button that will flash a number, that is the count of images your camera has taken. When you first cut the camera on, you will see bL:89 That represents 89%.

settings??? dies any body actually know how to configure all the settings in these? the nanual doesnt even tell me what half the stuff is...

This cam is poor poor quality. Its 2022 folks. To charge $80+ for a toddler cam is ripoff. No sound are you serious. If you just want cheap pics than its basic cam. Put you money into other better cams. Be sure they do better vids. This cam is a scam and its poor video capability shows.

There is in fact a battery life indicator… When you turn the camera to the “On” position, it will say something like “BL 75” and then start counting down from 10. The “BL 75” would indicate battery life 75% or whatever percentage your batteries are at. Then, it counts down from 10 until the camera is set and ready to start taking pictures. That style battery life indicator is utilized on several Moultrie cameras. It doesn’t show the battery life in “set up” position; you have to turn it to “on” position and then that is the first thing it shows you.

Battery life is displayed when turned to the "on" position, ex. BL96. Cool little cam, no problems here.