Stealth Cam G42NG Trail Camera

Rob Johnston

Editor & Article Writer for Outdoor Wilds

Stealth Cam G42NG Trail Camera Review

In this article review I share my experience of owning and using the Stealth Cam G42NG trail camera.

The company who make the trail camera have a reputation for making excellent digital scouting cameras. The G42NG adds to that reputation with its solid picture quality and detection range.

The NG denotes that this trail camera is of the “NO-Glow” infrared LED variety.

If you look at the trail camera forums and take a quick google search you’ll soon see that G42NG is one of the most popular trail cams out there, and good reason too.

Last update on 2024-04-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Stealth Cam Triad 3 in 1 Set up

The G42NG like some of the other cameras in the GSM Outdoors trail camera range provides a unique way of setting up the camera.

This is what GSM called their “Triad 3-IN-1 technology”, put simply, it’s a switch that has 3 pre-programmed settings for an ultra quick setup.

If you read on, I take a look at all of the features and settings in more detail and tell you what I like and don’t like about the camera.

Technical specification

12MP sensor, plus other settings of 2p / 4mp / 8mp / 10mp
42 Black “No Glow” infrared LED emitters
100 ft range
Burst mode 1-9 images
HD video 1280 x 720
64GB Sd card
Timelapse mode
8 x AA batteries

Unboxing & First Impressions

The camera comes in a compact box with all the main features outlined on the outside of the box.

Inside the box you get in addition to the camera, a tree strap, a comprehensive multi language user manual, a colour flyer promoting additional extras, plus a cool small Stealth Cam adhesive sticker.

Build Quality and Durability

The G42MG is quite a large trail camera at 4 inches wide by 5.5” tall and 2.5” deep.

When the cameras front cover is locked in place, it almost feels like a small brick it’s that tough to hand. I didn’t carry out a drop test but I would say it wouldn’t have any problem soaking up an impact on your average forest floor if dropped.

The front cover is released by 2 small catches that also have a rugged feel and make a satisfying snap sound when locked into place. My only slight criticism is that when the front cover is open fully it does feel a little vulnerable to heavy knocks.

At the rear of the trail cam are 2 quite large brackets to take the tree strap, at the top of which is a pair of separate holes to thread a python lock or similar through for security.

Tree strap

A slight disappointment was that the tree strap didn’t have a crocodile clip style buckle, only a traditional threaded type, but maybe I’m just used to the latest Browning trail cam having this minor addition.

At the side between the two cover locks is a further vertical facing hole for a python lock to also thread through to stop the cover from being opened and the control panel and SD card accessed.

Trail camera mount insert

At the base there is also a 1/4-20 brass tapped screw insert for a tree mount or camera tripod ground mount to cover food plot areas around a field.

Overall the build quality and design is very good, and I can’t see any problems occurring even with prolonged heavy use over a period of time.

Control Panel

One of the great strengths of this camera is it’s ease of setup.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that this trail camera is light on settings and features.

When you open the cover you are presented with a 2 line backlit LCD screen, the “quick set programming” switch with it’s 5 positions, a menu and enter button, plus a 4 way control pad.

There is also the eject button for the battery tray, which is housed on the underside of the trail cam.

SD card slot

To the right side of the camera are the SD card slot and a micro USB port to connect up to both PC and Mac via a micro USB cable that’s not supplied with the trail cam.

The LCD screen glows a bright green when powered up making it very easy to read.

The buttons are a little on the small side but that may be just my fat fingers. They do however depress with a satisfying click sound.

Battery Life

The G42NG takes 8 X AA batteries in the tray housed at the base of the camera.

The battery tray is very easy to access. This may be a small detail but some trail cams can be a pain in this regard.

Battery type

The manufacturers as far as I’m aware don’t specify what type of battery type to use. But as I always say, please use lithium batteries.

I know they’re more expensive than alkaline but they last so much longer and provide far greater performance over alkaline batteries that it’s what they call a “No Brainer”.

The number of times I hear stories of people complaining about a trail cameras performance when in most cases it’s down to then using alkaline batteries.

NiMh batteries as with almost all trail cams is just a complete “NO”, they just don’t have the power output to operate the 42 LEDS at night.

The battery life is indicated on the LCD screen when you scroll through the menu settings as a percentage.

Updated model

The company do say the camera will operate for up to a year with a single set of batteries. I know this model and latest firmware update have improved battery life to “Completely re-engineered optimized energy efficiency”.

When I’ve had the camera a year under different conditions I will report back with my exact findings on battery life, but at present, the battery life of this trail cam does look to be better than average.

Detection Circuit

Overall I have to say that the detection circuit of this trail cam is very good.

We’re talking a sub 0.5 second trigger speed for pictures and slightly slower for video. Unfortunately the recovery time is not great for both and I’ve read times of around 3 seconds. My time with the camera would say is not far off and probably the worst case.

There are ways around the poor recovery time though. Overall, don’t let it put you off too much.

Detection range

To compensate the relatively poor recovery time, the camera does have a very good detection range.

A type of technology called “Multi-Zone Detection” covers a number of angles, therefore a wider detection zone is the result.

I have to say this trail cam does deliver in this instance and placed at the right angle to a trail head it really would have all the angles covered, pun intended.

Setting up the G42NG

This is probably the greatest strength of the G42NG and why it’s become one of the most popular trail cameras you can buy over the last few years.

Sometimes you just want to set the camera up quickly and move onto the next location asap, without messing about with a host of settings.

This is where the “Triad 3-IN-1 technology” really does excel.

All you have to do is slide the settings switch to one of the preset selections and your done, Boom!

The 3 settings offer,

8 MP, 30 second timeout and 3 image burst.
8 MP, 30 second timeout and 1 image.
10 second video and 30 second timeout.

“Time Out” signifies how long the camera will trigger again when it detects motion.

The 4 selection via the switch is “Custom”. This setting offers a whole range of variations on the 3 preset modes. Plus a timelapse setting.

The default mode under custom is set to 5 MP, 5 second timeout delay and a 1 image shot.

Custom Mode

There are 3 different ways to capture images under custom mode.

Photo
Video
Time Lapse

In photo mode you can set the quality of the pictures from 2MP upto 12MP with varying quality increments.

The PIR delay allows you to set the timeout that the PIR will wait until it detects movement, from 0.5 seconds to 59 minutes 59 seconds. So there really is great flexibility in this area of the trail camera. There is also the same flexibility in video mode too.

Video Mode

Video mode has 2 quality settings. 720 x 480 and 1280 x 720 HD. The camera accepts SD cards upto 64 gigabytes so I’m not sure there’s much point in trying to save space on an SD card by choosing the lower setting unless you leave the camera on site for months without checking.

Video duration may be set from 5 seconds up to 180 seconds.

In Photo mode you can also set the burst mode to a single image upto 9 shots, in increments from 1-9. This ia a great additional feature to the camera.

Timelapse also has all of the above features and adjustment available.

Additional Features

One of the additional features to the G42NG is the ability to choose when the camera will operate throughout the day.

For example you may only want the camera to be active at dawn. To do this you set a schedule start time and end time or leave it set by default to 24/7.

Along with this fantastic flexibility for the 3 capture modes you also have the usual, date and time settings, along with a few others that are not so common.

Additional settings for the G42NG

In picture mode there is a reduce blur option. This uses the reduce blur matrix technology on any night time pictures. It does seem to do a reasonable job too of keeping any fast moving game running through the frame from being just a smudge.

A welcome addition to see is the use of GEO-TAG. If you’ve got several trail cams or more it’s great to be able to remember where each was situated.

To do this you can enter both latitude and longitude separately. The data can then be read back with certain software such a iphoto.

Another useful feature is the security key. Just enter a 4 digit code to create the password and the camera is locked from use until its rentered. If you do forget the code you can phone GSM Outdoors customer services, but the trail cam must be registered with them first.

Lastly the other option worth noting is that the language of the camera menu settings can be changed to German, French or Spanish.

Picture Quality

This version of the trail camera has a 12MP sensor. This does deliver decent quality pictures both in video and still picture mode.

Take a look at the video footage taken from the camera on my Youtube channel.

The image quality as mentioned earlier can be set from 2MP upto 12MP, so you have the flexibility between quality and storage.

Video resolution

Video can be set at a choice of 2 resolutions. I only opted for the full 720 HD setting as I see no point in using a modern trail cam at a lower resolution. There is also the ability to record sound too, or leave the video silent.

The daytime images were excellent for a sub $100 trail camera. As with all modern trail cams the pictures were a little oversaturated in colour but overall you wouldn’t be disappointed with the results.

The night images were also very good apart from some night images being washed out when detection was close to the 42 “No Glow” emitters. The range of the emitters at night was very impressive, as was the angle of the detection zone.

Last update on 2024-04-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot to like about this trail cam. Especially when you consider that this is deemed as a budget trail camera.

The overall build quality was excellent as was the operation of the settings. OK, it would have been nice to have a full colour viewing screen but you can choose a number of options to view images recorded on the trail cam in the field these days with either a smartphone or a dedicated SD card reader.

The picture quality was really very good overall, it’s a shame some of the night pictures were little over exposed when triggered close to the LEDs. I would have liked to have seen an option to reduce the power of the emitters to solve this problem.

Firmware

One other consideration is to make sure the trail cam has the latest firmware installed. You can check what version is installed on the LCD screen and go to the Stealth Cam website to find out if it is in fact the latest version.

Connection to a computer

If your PC or mac doesn’t have an SD card slot you can hook up the camera via a micro USB cable to transfer all your images.

So there you have it! Yes, i would recommend anyone looking for a low cost trail camera to strongly consider the Stealth Cam G42NG as their next purchase.

When I’ve owned a trail cam for a while I tend to sell the camera to invest in a new trail cam. But somehow I think I’m going to keep hold of this trail game camera for quite a while longer as I‘d be sad to see it go.

Good luck out there and happy scouting!

Take a look at this article if you’d like to read further Stealth Cam trail camera reviews.

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