The Moultrie game trail cameras have undergone an impressive redesign for 2017. As part of the new series, the Moultrie M-40i is top of the line and does not disappoint. From fast detection, to outstanding image quality, and up to 9 months of battery life, the M-40i is a top trail camera option. Its video battery life is below average, but performs admirably in other aspects.
The slimmed down M-40i has an attractive pine camo case. It bears forth a solid 16MP image sensor, very fast trigger speed of 0.3 seconds, and delivers 1080p HD video with audio. This game cam has the specs that hunters are asking for, and our M-40i review has all the details.
Contents:
Tech Specs
- Image Sizes: 16 MP, with a 16:9 aspect ratio for a larger field of view
- Video: 1080p video with sound, 5 to 90 seconds
- Detection Range: 80 feet
- Flash Range: 80 feet, 32 LEDs
- Trigger Speed: 0.3 seconds
- Recovery Speed: 2.7 seconds
- Batteries: 8 AA batteries
- Physical Size: 3.25” Wide, 5.0” Tall, 3.0” Deep
Camera Design – New Case for 2017
The Moultrie M40i is a well-designed and engineered game camera. The new case design is much smaller than its Gen2 predecessors. It offers a great option for hunters looking for smaller yet powerful trail cameras. A palm-sized game camera with good camouflaging is easier to carry, easier to mount on trees, harder to spot by a trespasser.
The latch to open and close the camera has an unusual mechanism, but it’s still easy to operate. The battery tray ejects at the bottom of the camera and it is easy to load and unload the batteries.
For setup, users who are familiar with the programming functions on older models will have to re-learn the M-40i’s new menu with the help of the owner’s manual. The menus on these new Moultrie cams are not their strong suit.
Detection & Trigger
Picture detection and recovery with the M-40i appears to be exceptional. It captures the first picture at a snappy 0.3 seconds and recovers at a relatively fast 2.7 seconds to capture the next shot. This high trigger and recovery speed ensures you never miss a picture of any game before it scrambles out of sight.
The M-40i features a detection range of 80ft; and with its top-of-the-range Invisible Infrared Flash technology, the camera can comfortably illuminate and photograph animals within this range in total darkness. The M-40i’s detection width also closely matches its field of view, which is indeed an excellent detection range.
Related: Top 10 Trail Camera Reviews
Picture & Video Quality
Daytime Photos– The daytime images captured with the M-40i trail camera are quite impressive. The pictures have great clarity and display realistic colors as well as a great depth of field. The camera stops motion well during the day too.
With the camera’s 16MP image sensor and a 16:9 wide image format, you get a very nice wide field of view. This is truly apparent when you have two cameras pointed at the same spot.
Nighttime Photos– Equally, night photos captured with the M-40i appear to be great. It has an excellent flash range and does very well in terms of contrast. Whether taken in dense woods or open fields, the night photos look very satisfying.
There are cases where blurring occurs, particularly on running animals, but that can be controlled using the “Motion Freeze” setting to quicken the shutter speed and hence freeze fast-moving objects for clear shots. You may also get some whiteout on near objects at night probably because the camera has such a good close range focus and an Infrared Flash.
Video – Video quality with the M-40i is very good. It mimics the picture quality, both during the day and night. The camera is capable of high-resolution videos of up to 1920×080 pixels. The night videos also have great looking contrast, which is a big win for night operation.
Battery Life
The M-40i trail camera runs on 8 AA batteries with the capability of capturing close to 19,000 images on a 32GB card. The battery efficiency of this camera highly depends on whether you use it for capturing pictures or video. In picture mode, the camera uses relatively low power compared to the video mode, which uses large amounts of power per video clip.
According to TrailCamPro, if the camera took 70 pictures over each 24-hour period, it would last 9 months in the field on a set of 8 AA Lithium batteries. This puts it among the most efficient cameras in picture mode. However, if it were to take 30 10-second videos every 24 hours, it would struggle to operate beyond a month and a half on similar batteries, making it one of the more inefficient video trail cameras.
Conclusion
- The M-40i’s biggest advantage is its high picture and video quality.
- Its ability to capture pictures fast with a 0.3-second trigger speed.
- Up to 9-month battery life in picture mode.
- Small concealable case size, with pine camo finish.
- The biggest disadvantage with the camera is its short battery life when in video mode (around 2 months only).
- Slowish trigger speed when in video mode.
Review Summary
In general, the M-40i is a great addition to any hunter’s lineup of scouting tools. Despite its shortfall when it comes to battery life on video mode, the camera offers great features in other areas. From fast detection and quality pictures both at night and during the day, to no glow, portability, case design, wireless modem compatibility, and a long picture battery life, the M-40i trail camera is a top recommendation.
Sources
- https://www.ammoland.com/2017/01/moultrie-introduces-ultra-fast-m-40i-scouting-cam/
- https://www.trailcampro.com/collections/trail-camera-reviews/products/moultrie-m-40i
- https://www.moultriefeeders.com/moultire-m-40i-game-camera
new batteries lasted about two days on single photo mode.
Clearly that is not normal. Did it take photos every minute? Did you take video? Did you use lithium batteries? All those factors will dramatically affect battery life.
I am having the same problem. After I set the camera on custom mode/motion detection it gives on the display 002days, and the camera works only 2 days with alkaline batteries before it shuts down completely! Is that normal? Cuddeback cameras would work like 3-6 months with the same batteries!
Maybe I missed it, but does the camera have a battery life indicator or a message that let’s me know how much remaining battery power is left?
It should show it in the corner of the display when in capture mode.
I don’t know if th he switches in this camera went or what. Batteries went dead on me lasted better than I thought they would. I replace them to get some pictures. Note where I put this camera was about a 2 mile walk to find it not even turning on. Not happy with this camera