Cards for Trail Cameras

Choosing the right SD Card for your Trail Camera

Using a trail camera to capture images and videos of wildlife can be a great tool for hunting. However, you need the right SD card inside the camera to reliably save all those photos and video footage. Here are our recommendations for an SD card optimized for trail cameras:

Brand Compatibility for Trail Cameras

We wrote a helpful article on the Best SD cards for Trail Cameras with the reasons we chose these cards. We researched the top brands for Trail Cameras and verified the specifications of SD card that work with them.

Whether you’re using Browning, Tactacam, Bushnell, SpyPoint, Stealth Cam, or Cuddeback, these are the SD cards for your trail camera.

Get a great SD card for your Tactacam Trail Camera. Use any U3 rated memory card for best quality. The SanDisk Extreme SD card works great with Tactacam.

SpyPoint Trail Camera is best used with a MicroSD card. Get a great MicroSD card for your SpyPoint Trail Camera with an SD adapter to view photos on your computer.

Storage Capacity

Trail cameras can generate a lot of data, especially if capturing HD video in a busy area. Although most prefer a 16GB card in your trail camera, it may fill up in a month or two. You can also look for SD cards with 32GB to collect a whole season worth of content before needing to offload it. Just doublecheck your camera specs to ensure compatibility with larger capacities. For the majority of hunters, a 16GB SD card will be enough.

Write Speed Rating

The write speed determines how fast your trail cam can save content to the SD card. Entry-level cards often have write speeds around 10-40MB/s. However, higher-end trail cameras demand faster speeds like 60-120MB/s. Trail Cameras don’t create video files or photos with a high bit rate, so you don’t need anything faster than 100MB/s. Search for cards rated UHS-I U3 or V30 for the best performance.

Durability

Trail cameras get exposed to temperature swings, humidity, dirt, and more. Look for durable SD cards with ratings like waterproof, shockproof, or temperature proof. Top brands like SanDisk Extreme can withstand harsher conditions than basic consumer SD cards.

Trusted Brand

Stick with major brands, or brands you’re familiar with. We sell products from SanDisk to Kingston and even our own private label. When buying SD cards for trail cams, consider quality control in with your research. As mentioned before, the quality of your SD card is important in outdoor weather. The slight savings of generic cards isn’t worth the risk of reliability issues or early failure in the wilderness. Reputable brands rigorously test their cards in harsh environments during development, making them perfect SD Cards for trail cameras.

SD Cards Optimized for Trail Cameras

Some SD cards now get optimized specifically to work in security cameras and trail cams. For example, SanDisk High Endurance cards allow extra overwrite cycles better suited for constant looping rewrite workflows. Special UHS-I compatibility ensures top performance in security camera models.

Hopefully these tips give you a great starting point on what to look for when purchasing SD cards to use in your trail cameras!