Wingscapes WSCA04 Timelapse Outdoor PlantCam Review and Tips

I got my PlantCam as a gift and before that I didn't know they existed.  After running it through various tests I'd gladly purchase one.  It is weatherproof so you can leave it outside for extended periods without the worry of it becoming damaged.  It has a 4.0 megapixel camera and 16mb of internal memory which is not nearly enough memory so you'll want to use an SD card with it (which are cheap).  I found that it does use batteries very fast if you have it taking pictures at a faster rate.  To solve this I noticed it had an external power supply jack for 12 volt DC.  I had an old power adapter that I took from a router and it worked perfect though it would need to be protected if you use it outdoors.  I used it indoors to film basil plants growing and I left the front door of it open so that the lens was not shooting through another layer of plastic just to make the picture a little better.  Using it near grow lights with a magnetic ballast will cause some distortion of the photos.  To solve this I wrapped the camera in foil with just the lens showing and it completely solved the problem.  I made a video showing all of it's functions which you can see below.  I also included a time lapse of basil growing over a 30 day period also below.  I used Apple Quicktime to stitch the photos together and put it at the highest quality setting to export the clip to an .mov file.  This year I'll be trying it more outdoors since I love the way it filmed changes in the weather.

Here is the video I made going over all the functions and settings:

Here is a second video I made showing the growth of basil plants from seed:

Since I posted this review, Wingscapes has discontinued this product but they have upgraded the new one to 8 MP quality.  You can purchase the new one here: Wingscapes TimelapseCam

Here is the new version: