Tacklebox ’n Tools

Trail Camera Battery Life Calculator

Find out how many days your trail camera runs on one set of AA batteries, which batteries last longest and how many to pack for the season.

How to use it

  1. Pick your type of camera and how many AA batteries it holds. Cellular cameras use far more power because they send every picture.
  2. Tell it how busy the spot is. Enter about how many times a day the camera goes off, and how many of those happen at night when the infrared flash fires.
  3. Choose your batteries and the weather. Lithium, rechargeable or alkaline, and whether it will be below freezing.
  4. Read the results. Days on one set, how many sets your season needs, how each battery type compares and what to buy.

Your setup

An example is loaded to start. Change any field and the results update. Simple shows the essentials. Detailed adds pictures per trigger, how much happens at night, a table of every battery type and the math.

View

Your camera

AA
Count the slots in the battery tray. Most cameras take 6, 8 or 12.

Your spot

per day
Deer, turkeys, squirrels and blowing branches all count. A quiet spot might be 4, a busy feeder 50 or more.
pictures
Your camera's burst or multi-shot setting.
Night shots fire the infrared flash, which uses more power.

Your batteries

Weather

Your season

days
The whole season, or the time between trips to check the camera.

How the numbers are worked out

Power the camera uses

Each camera type uses power measured on a real camera with lab meters, listed under Sources. A day's use is resting power × 24 h + triggers × (energy per day shot or night shot). Pictures are counted in watt-seconds each, and video in watts for every second the clip records.

The cellular figures include sending each picture, which is why they are several times higher than a camera that only saves to its card.

Power in the batteries

Each AA type uses the energy GearCheckers measured in a lab at 0.5 W per cell, about the load of night video, down to 1.0 V per cell at room temperature. A set holds number of AA × watt-hours per cell. Days on one set is watt-hours in the set ÷ watt-hours used per day.

Alkaline cells measured far below their label under this load, and their voltage sags early, which can make a camera shut off with power still left in them.

Cold weather

Below freezing, alkaline batteries are cut to half, from TrailCamPro's note that they can lose up to half their capacity. Energizer rates its alkaline AA down to 0 °F only, and its lithium AA down to −40 °F, so lithium is not reduced. We did not find a published cold figure for rechargeables, so they are not reduced, but expect less from them in hard cold.

What it leaves out

  • Your exact camera. Two cameras of the same type can differ by two or three times.
  • Batteries slowly losing charge on their own, which matters most on very long sets.
  • Cellular signal. A weak signal makes a cellular camera work harder to send each picture.
  • Cameras that shut off at a higher voltage, which can leave some of the power unused.

Planning estimates. Check your camera's manual for the batteries it supports. Some cameras will not run on 1.2 V rechargeable batteries, or will not take night pictures on them. For placement, settings and fixes for blank pictures, read our trail camera guide.

Sources