Hi Luis,

I think it really depends on what you are exactly doing. Maybe it is worth to think about to use a Raspberry Pi with a camera module. We used such a setup to film toads for 24 h and it worked quite good. Some of the available camera modules are able to film in the infrared spectrum, so you could set up some IR lights to illuminate the area during the night without irritating you experimental animals.

Best, Christoph

Thanks, Christoph Leeb. Care to share the setup or the camera brands? Was the video stored locally or you used the Raspberry to transmit it wirelessly somewhere? What was the resolution of the video? Did you use an SD card or an external Hard Drive?

We used a Raspberry Pi 3 (Model B) with "Kuman A + RPI Raspberry Pi Model B B + 3 2 1 Camera IR Filter, Day and Nachtsichttaugliches Camera Module for Raspberry Pi Models SC15) as camera (you can find it on amazon). We recorded the videos with 1,296 x 730 pixels and stored them on a 64 GB USB-stick. However, you could also transmit the video stream to an other computer via wlan or access the Raspberry via remote control to have a live stream. As the Raspberrys are freely configurable, there is (more or less) nothing that you can not do.

Thank you Christoph, this was very helpful, I will give it a look. Thanks again!

I have had great success with an older model of Foscam IP cameras. I used the Foscam fi9805w a few years back. It's weather proof for outdoor use (and copes well with intense indoor environments e.g dust, heat, humidity etc. In addition you can choose between POI or wireless as well. You only need a laptop, desktop with ample hard drive space and a router. We used up to 16 cameras simultaneously by either wifi or cat6. We had cameras sit outdoors during temperatures as low as -5F and ice storms and during summers with temperatures as high as 95F with high humidity. We also used them indoors in swine, calf and chicken barns with good results as long as you don't need to them o WiFi indoors. The indoor environments weakens the wifi signal significantly. I was also able to incorporate a signal booster that increased the wifi radius to around 2500 ftoutdoors. For behavioural analysis we imported these videos into Noldus - The observer. I think the new later models can do 1024 HD or higher resolution. We mostly used 720p which basically stored video around 1GB/h of recording. Some cameras were continuously recording up to 3 months straight without problems. The hard drive space is your limit. They also have built in infra-red for night vison up to 30ft for indoor use. Only downside was that you had to turn off the recording when you changed hard drive. But in the grand scale of things that was mere minutes over the course of months or weeks. Send me a message for more info if need be.

You can shop online based on your specifications and purpose of use. There are lots of newer versions and models of video camera that will fascinate you.