I am looking to buy a flash trigger for my OM Systems OM1 II camera and noticed there seem to be 3 major brands.

Backscatter

Turtle - Smart 3

Underwater Technics

I was wondering if anyone has seen a comparison among these triggers? I looked at Youtube but only found single reviews - no comparison among the flash triggers themselves. It would be nice to have thoughts/opinions from photographers that have used the most recent triggers as well.

I didn't include the Nauticam trigger as it is only Manual - I would like TTL and Manual options.

A big question is what strobe(s) are you looking at. I recently switched from a Panasonic GH5 to GH7 which required a new trigger. I picked the o-Turtle Smart 2 to pair with my Inon Z240s and it worked very well. The Smart 3 looks like a great upgrade and supports the RC modes (and now Panasonic WIRELESS). I think the backscatter only does manual and RC but not 100% sure.

I have both Inon Z240s and the new Backscatter Hybrid flashes. I just got the Backscatter flashes - need to use them a bit more to make sure I like them, before I get rid of my trusty Inons.

1 minute ago, Auds said:

I have both Inon Z240s and the new Backscatter Hybrid flashes. I just got the Backscatter flashes - need to use them a bit more to make sure I like them, before I get rid of my trusty Inons.

The Backscatter HF-1 strobes are great, but it's also nice to have a spare strobe or two. I'd hang on to your Inons, or at least one of them.

I use the Nauticam Nikon manual trigger. I don't need TTL. The nice thing about this trigger is that it's fast and the battery lasts basically forever. I change them each January and reuse them in the vacuum circuit. (which chews through batteries)

Edited June 25Jun 25 by Dave_Hicks

Ya I checked the Backscatter documentation -- it will only do TTL with the HF using RC, not with the Inons using mimic. The TRT can work on both. Not sure about the UWT but I don't think they do RC mode yet.

8 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

The Backscatter HF-1 strobes are great, but it's also nice to have a spare strobe or two. I'd hang on to your Inons, or at least one of them.

I use the Nauticam Nikon manual trigger. I don't need TTL. The nice thing about this trigger is that it's fast and the battery lasts basically forever. I change them each January and reuse them in the vacuum circuit. (which chews through batteries)

The other thing with the Nauticam trigger is that it can do up 1/400 flash sync speed on Olympus as it does not report to the camera as a flash, I'm not sure that the other triggers could do this. They would need to be able to turn off TTL mode and not report to the camera to do so.

Note this is not HSS - it just exploits the shutter travel time which actually allows shutter speeds this high to be used. The advantage if that you don't lose power through HSS, though some strobes with a long flash duration may not quite reach full power. For some reason Olympus lock out shutter speed above 1/250 I expect it may be because you can't always reach fill power or perhaps it can only work in manual with first curtain sync or some similar limitation.