× The park is the third largest in Thailand. It covers an area of 300 square kilometers, including tropical seasonal forests and grasslands. Its altitude mostly ranges from 400–1,000 m above sea level. There are 3,000 species of plants, 320 species of birds, and 67 species of mammals, recording in this, Thailand's most famous National Park.

Camera Trap Pics

27 Nov 2020 15:58 #5522 by wvwv

Camera Trap Pics was created by wvwv

from the last few months, dates aren't accurate but temperature should be. When I am putting one near ground level I always try and put it where I don't expect elephants to walk, perhaps a trail which looks too thin for them to be using, because I have had elephants smash up a camera before. But elephants seem to be everywhere in Khao Yai, I can't avoid them. Apart from deer I get more elephants than anything else. Would like to get some cats on the cameras, not sure where to place them for best results? Does Khao Yai even have leopards anymore? Searches only turn up clouded leopard.

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27 Nov 2020 18:14 #5523 by Paul T

Replied by Paul T on topic Camera Trap Pics

Cool pics! Nice quality as well.

There are no leopards in Khao Yai nor the whole of the Dong PhayaYen - Khao Yai forest complex. Nobody really knows why this is so.

I have a bit of a history with camera traps myself, and you just have to take it on the nose as to the elephants. In my experience it's the males that wilfully attack the cameras, whilst the females (family groups) have an inquisitiveness to them and touch and feel them but don't usually attack them.

Camera trapping ends up being quite expensive where elephants are :+)

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23 Jul 2021 16:11 - 23 Jul 2021 16:12 #5656 by wvwv

Replied by wvwv on topic Camera Trap Pics

Some more. It was a new camera and the default shutter length setting was too long - images came out a little blurry. Lesson learned. First time I've camera trapped a bear.

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26 Jan 2022 01:13 - 26 Jan 2022 01:34 #5735 by wvwv

Replied by wvwv on topic Camera Trap Pics

I tried changing the shutter speed to get less blurry images at night, it worked for slow-moving animals i.e. elephants but not really for the clouded leopard (very happy to get one of those on camera). Looking at the night shots at the bottom of this page, wildlifethailand.com/blog-posts/mammals/299-the-clouded-leopard the focus is perfect, I know those images are from super expensive pieces of kit, but does it mainly boil down to the presence of a flash? The cameras I am using don't have any flash.

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26 Jan 2022 19:46 #5736 by Paul T

Replied by Paul T on topic Camera Trap Pics

wvwv wrote:
I know those images are from super expensive pieces of kit, but does it mainly boil down to the presence of a flash? The cameras I am using don't have any flash.

Its down to the camera trap you are using, it is probably a "black light" camera trap ? You don't need flash, for good day time pics you just need a lot of light so place the camera with that in mind. You can probably buy the same model of camera trap you are using which uses "white light" (LED light not flash) thats better for night quality and video. You can also buy camera traps with flash light instead of LEDs, these produce generally better quality of pictures but can't do night time video. The pics in the link you gave are all DSLR with off camera flash for the foreground exposure (backgrounds are balanced normal light).

White light tends to make wildlife more cautious because they can see it, flash can aggravate elephants and I had a lot of destroyed camera traps using flash. Thats the hidden bonus of black light, night time quality is very questionable but animals are generally unaware the trap is there.

For cats, you have to think like a cat :+) look for sign in an area (pug marks, hairballs, etc). The smaller cats will walk trails but also have the size opportunity to go anywhere, bigger cats tend to walk trails. Obviously in KY bigger cats are not "common" (I want to hopefully say "yet").

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