Chris, I have purchased alot of different brand cameras. I can tell you my experiences with some of them. I started with a Buckshot 35, 35mm film camera with a flash it worked great but I got antsy to get a digital so I purchased a leaf river digital with a flash, I got alot of pictures of deers rumps walking by the camera, it was to slow to put out on trails (the “PROS” say to point it at a 45 degree angle to the trail for better results, that did work a little better sometimes I could even see the front shoulder but would rarely get a centered up pic.} Next I purchased a cuddeback flash, it was great out of the box sweet pics and the battery life was great, I am getting 2 to 4 months on a set of batteries. I kept that camera and puchased 3 aqua view infared cameras, one word JUNK. I tried my buddies leaf river infared to see how that worked, he liked it but it had a delayed trigger and not very good night pics. I bit the bullet and purchased the Cuddeback infared. It takes good pics during the day bu as with all infared the night pics were fairly poor, I purchased this camera to put in by my hunting stands to find out what was there, so the flash didn’t spook them. The battery life is about the same as my cuddeback flash If I was going out to buy one trail camera tonight I would buy the cuddeback flash it gives you great pictures day and night and the battery life is one of the best out there. I have not tried out the Reconx cameras but I hear they are nice cameras. I hope this jibber jabber helps a little bit, i wish I would have had more info when I was buying. Oh well live and learn.