OM SYSTEM Tough TG-7: Two compact underwater strobes with NO housing

How can I trigger two underwater strobes with an OM SYSTEM TG-7 without using a housing?

The TG-7’s built-in flash must either:

• not fire at all,

• be easily physically covered/blocked from illuminating the subject, or

• otherwise contribute essentially nothing to the image.

I’m looking for the two smallest/most compact strobes that can work with this setup.

What specific strobes and triggering method would you recommend?

Hi Deemoo, I would first say that a TG-7 without a housing will be OK for a couple of years then the seals will fail and the camera will die. The seals under the top panel controls are a membrane seal that the buttons work through and eventually the membrane fails. I always recommend a housing even if it's the OM housing which works fine. Once you add a tray to allow you to add arms to hold your strobe the compactness advantage of the TG-7 without a housing is lost. In the manual the fine print says you should have the seals changed once a year.

The housing has the facility to plug in fibre optic cables to trigger your strobes. then you just attach them to your strobes and you are ready to go. As for choice of strobe it's hard to go past the little INON S-220, it's small and compact and has a good beam as well as being quite powerful.

If you still want to use the bare camera you can get little stick on ports for fibre optic cables you can place over the flash. If you use manual strobes you can set the flash to low power manual on the camera and any light leakage will be minor and unlikely to cause problems.

Thank you!

Housing:

I hear you, but my point is to be as compact and lean as possible. Otherwise I can go with an RX100 + housing.

Inon S220 S-TTL Underwater Strobe:

Roger. Would you happen to know the smallest hybrid light for photo and video?

Stick on ports for fiber optic cables:

Can you suggest known-to-work models to order?

1 hour ago, Deemoo said:

Thank you!

Housing:

I hear you, but my point is to be as compact and lean as possible. Otherwise I can go with an RX100 + housing.

Inon S220 S-TTL Underwater Strobe:

Roger. Would you happen to know the smallest hybrid light for photo and video?

Stick on ports for fiber optic cables:

Can you suggest known-to-work models to order?

No problem. I would suggest that an RX-100 and TG7 are not really interchangeable- the TG7 is a macro machine and does real close ups all by itself. The RX100 and TG7 are more or less the same on the wide end but to approach the performance of the TG7 you need to add on diopter closup lens as the lens does not focus that close and you have the carry that somewhere, plus they are not as straight forward to use and have a limited focus range.

Hybrid strobes/video lights tend to be OK at both or perhaps like the Backscatter HF-1 it's a powerful strobes with an OK video light but very heavy and fairly large. The problem is a small strobe can run quite happily on 4 eneloops batteries , while to power a decent video light you need a couple of big 18650 or 21700 Li batteries, either that or they are rather underpowered.

this item is made for the olympus housing to attach fibre optics:

Backscatter.com

OM System PFCA-03 Optical Fiber Cable Adapter

OM System PFCA-03 Optical Fiber Cable Adapter for PT-056, PT-058, PT-059 Housing for TG-3, TG-4, TG-5, TG-6, TG-7.

I haven't seen one designed for the bare camera, there are generic stick on units that I've seen being sold.

You may be able to find some exposed slide film, the tail or lead. Then place it over the camera flash. My Inons would trigger from the infrared.

Thanks!
On this config, the aim is the smallest/lightest rig that can deliver images where the quality remains good enough to be able to use/present anywhere.
Backscatter HF-1 is too big.
What about these as a hybrid?
Weefine WFS07 Underwater Strobe and Video Light

Weefine WFS09 Underwater Strobe and Video Light

iDive Symbiosis SS3 Underwater Strobe & Video Light