Having recently written about installing the o-Turtle trigger into a Nauticam housing, I’ve now had a go with a UWT internal trigger for the Nauticam NA-OM1 housing. UWT describes it as the 11072-22-HSS TTL-Converter for NAUTICAM for OLYMPUS/ OM SYSTEM.
The UWT trigger arrives in a bubble-wrap envelope in a small cardboard box. No frills functional. It consists of a small electronics board with two LEDs and a cable leading to a hot shoe connector. The manual explains that strobes are selected through a small click-dial (just visible in the bottom right of the picture). That is the whole of the setup. There is no battery with power being drawn, I guess, from the camera. The trigger provides Manual, TTL and, with the right strobes, HSS initiation.
The manual explains that, no surprise, the board is fixed to the housing bulkhead so that the two LEDs shine through the housing fibre optic ports. Unlike other UWT boards (eg for Subal - which uses two screws), the fastening is achieved by two strips of double-sided tape which are pre-installed on the trigger board. “Simply” peel back the tape, and push into place.
Full details are here:
Installation seemed simple, but having experienced initial placement failure with the o-Turtle, I was more than slightly nervous about sticking the UWT board in place. After hours of thought, I used a very soft pencil (3B) to draw two straight lines on the inside of the housing which ran vertically through the LED ports; and single a horizontal line across the LED ports. The lines were longer than the size of the board so that they could be seen even with the board in place. The lines meant the alignment of the LED ports was visible even when the board hid them.
Then, with the camera installed in the housing and strobes plugged in to the bulkheads, I pushed the connector on to the camera hot shoe and watched how the cable allowed the electronics board to drop onto the bulkhead. Moving the board around slightly it was still possible to see the guide marks. Holding the board with a finger in what seemed the correct position, the shutter trigger was pulled - and bingo - the strobes fired. Yay!
Couple more trial goes followed just to make sure. Then removing the protective film from the sticky pads on the board and, again, using the pencil marks for alignment, I secured the board into place. Wiping the beads of sweat off my forehead, I pulled the trigger a few times and my Retras happily flashed away.
Playing around, Manual and TTL were a breeze. HSS took a little while to discover the settings needed on the OM-1ii but that was soon going too.
Using a UWT trigger on a Nikon/Subal system for over a decade proved very reliable. Any problems and Pavel, who is Mr UWT, is a tremendous source of help. Now based in Taiwan, UWT triggers are available by mail order or from the usual underwater photography dealers.
Recommended Comments