Experience with TRT S-Turtle TTL trigger?

1 hour ago, stuartv said:

 

Hello Balazs,

It's good to hear from you! I had emailed you on 1/21, asking what the differences are between the 3 different Turtle triggers for Sony that are shown on your website. I never heard anything back. I was concerned something had happened to you!

I think we may have some kind of misunderstanding here. Your email to me on 1/13 said:

"My suggest if you can find a dealer where you live you can test it there."

In my response, I said:

"Is there another dealer in the USA besides Backscatter? I would buy it from Backscatter to try except that they do not offer refunds on returned items. If there was someone else to buy it from that would offer a refund in case I tried it and it didn’t work, then I would buy it from them."

You'll notice that I did not say "if there was someone else to buy it from in the USA..." I asked about a dealer in the USA in direct response to your suggestion to find one where I could test your trigger with my YS-D3 strobes. My statement about where I would buy it from did not, in any way, preclude the possibility that I would buy it from your website, had you told me about that option.

Perhaps we have experienced somewhat of a language barrier? I may be mistaken but I have gotten the impression that possibly English is not your native language? Your English is very good, but maybe there is some nuance here that has left us misunderstanding each other?

That might also explain another misunderstanding we seem to have been having.

In email from myself to you on 1/20, I said:

"I received my S-Turtle Smart trigger for Sony Mirrorless today, from Bluewater Photo Store."

After a couple more emails back and forth, in an email from you to me on the next day (1/21), you said:

"i don't know what did you order!  You never mention this!"

I am still unclear on whether "S-Turtle Smart trigger for Sony Mirrorless" is somehow ambiguous with regards to communicating to you what product I had purchased. I thought it was adequately specific to clearly identify what I had purchased, but I don't know your products well enough to be certain of that. Or possibly it was adequately specific and, as I hypothesized earlier, we may just be experiencing some level of misunderstanding due to a small language barrier.

Anyway, I do not believe I have posted any "non real informations" about your firm in these forums or anywhere else.

Regards,

Stuart 

Hi Stuart. 

From my side is a "bit different". But its not problem for me.  

We always help to Our customers who buy the TURTLE from Us or from Our dealer.

But we can't see in the business between the dealer and the customer. !!!!!

You asked me about your purchase what we could not answered.   I think it is normal.

I check all emails what you wrote and we could answer all technical question  before you bought the product from Bluewater.
That's all what we can do.   
Sorry, but we didn't know what happened between the dealer and the customer this is not Our side.  i write it again.
All purchases belong only to the buyer and seller.

Every information is on Our website about the products,  may be there is technical or just shipping info. 

Fortunately we got so many positive emails from Our customers who use the TURTLE products.  Usually got pictures or just some good words.  So also here i would like to say thank our customers for the positive words

Well..   I hope you can find a correct trigger to your setup. 

Regards

Balazs Kurucz 
TRT-Electronics

1 minute ago, Balage_diver said:

Hi Stuart. 

From my side is a "bit different". But its not problem for me.  

We always help to Our customers who buy the TURTLE from Us or from Our dealer.

But we can't see in the business between the dealer and the customer. !!!!!

You asked me about your purchase what we could not answered.   I think it is normal.

I check all emails what you wrote and we could answer all technical question  before you bought the product from Bluewater.
That's all what we can do.   
Sorry, but we didn't know what happened between the dealer and the customer this is not Our side.  i write it again.
All purchases belong only to the buyer and seller.

Every information is on Our website about the products,  may be there is technical or just shipping info. 

Fortunately we got so many positive emails from Our customers who use the TURTLE products.  Usually got pictures or just some good words.  So also here i would like to say thank our customers for the positive words

Well..   I hope you can find a correct trigger to your setup. 

Regards

Balazs Kurucz 
TRT-Electronics

Hi Balazs,

I emailed this question and never got a response. Maybe I can learn here.

There are 3 images of the S-Turtle Trigger for Sony Mirrorless from your website. Can you please explain what the difference is between them?

Also, how do I know which is the correct one for my camera and housing?

Also, when trying to order one from your website, it does not give me an option to choose between these 3 different triggers, so how do I know which one I will receive?

I agree it is not clear and I'm surprised it is not specified (and I own one).

When you order a Turtle (on the website or your retailer), I believe you need to specify which housing you want to use it with (I emailed my retailer).

The first one is for Sony A7x Nauticam housings I am sure (I have that one). The second and third one are for other housings brands but I don't know which one (hugyfot likely)

6 minutes ago, Balage_diver said:

Hi Stuart. 

From my side is a "bit different". But its not problem for me.  

We always help to Our customers who buy the TURTLE from Us or from Our dealer.

But we can't see in the business between the dealer and the customer. !!!!!

You asked me about your purchase what we could not answered.   I think it is normal.

I check all emails what you wrote and we could answer all technical question  before you bought the product from Bluewater.
That's all what we can do.   
Sorry, but we didn't know what happened between the dealer and the customer this is not Our side.  i write it again.
All purchases belong only to the buyer and seller.

 You said that you always help your customers who buy the Turtle from you or your dealer. Unfortunately, that was not how I felt after my experience.

You also said you answered all my technical questions before I bought the product from Bluewater - which is true. And then you say "that is all we can do." That seems to be correct, as well. No more help from you after I bought from Bluewater.

I sent you an email that said:

"Hi Balazs,

I received my S-Turtle Smart trigger for Sony Mirrorless today, from Bluewater Photo Store. Picture attached.

This is for use with my Sony a7rIV camera, in a Nauticam housing.

I have a couple of questions:

First, it appears they sent me the Mobie version. What I received has the hotshoe separated from the trigger with a short cable.

Should I return this for the non-Mobie trigger, or does it matter?

Second, your website says these triggers come with a charging cable. There was no charging cable in the box. 

Did they send me an old version of the product that didn’t come with the cable? Should I have gotten a charging cable with it?

Third, the LED emitters on this do not look correct for my setup. Your website has pictures of LED emitters that are set in the top of stalks that would stick up inside the ports of my housing. 

Don’t I need a version of the trigger with that other type of LED?

Thanks.

-    Stuart"

The email had this picture attached.

Your response was this:

"Dear Stuart, 

Please contact with Bluewater in these cases.  
You bougth it from there not directly from Us. 
Regards
Balazs"

That does not seem to match your statement that you will support your customers who buy from your dealer.

Then later you said:

"i don't know what did you order!  You never mention this!"

As I mentioned earlier, that was on 1/21, when the day before, in the same email chain, I had said:

"I received my S-Turtle Smart trigger for Sony Mirrorless today, from Bluewater Photo Store. " I did tell you exactly what I ordered. I sent you a picture of what I received, and I asked you if what I received is what I ordered. You would not answer my question.

It was not my intention to air all this on this forum. But, since you chose to imply that I have posted "non real informations" on this forum, and then posted information that is "non real" - for example, "We always help to Our customers who buy the TURTLE from Us or from Our dealer" you have made me feel like my only recourse was to share the whole story here.

3 minutes ago, waterpixel said:

I agree it is not clear and I'm surprised it is not specified (and I own one).

When you order a Turtle (on the website or your retailer), I believe you need to specify which housing you want to use it with (I emailed my retailer).

The first one is for Sony A7x Nauticam housings I am sure (I have that one). The second and third one are for other housings brands but I don't know which one (hugyfot likely)

Right. And when I try to order one from their website, it never asks me what housing or camera I have. At least, not up to the point where I am ready to click the "Place Order" button.

I'm going to try and steer this back on topic. As I'm sure other people are are interested in the technical aspects and issues regarding this device.. Like I said earlier my s-turtle arrived Monday. And now the fun begins. 

For the those following:
I am using a Sony A6400 in a Nauticam housing. I bought the S-Turtle Mobie to use fiber optics over a long run, think underwater studio and don't want to use the pop up strobe.

OUT OF THE HOUSING I've triggered my Sea & Sea YS-D3's over 20ft using Asahi 613 multicore with the end directly touching the Turtle. LED's. IN THE HOUSING I've had absolutely ZERO luck trying to get the YS-D3's to fire. ZERO. 

Also there seems to be no way to easily align the LED pads of the Mobie to be exactly centered. I am open to all suggestions. The A6400 housing seems to have a prism built in as well? 

-Scott

15 minutes ago, ScottAudette said:

I'm going to try and steer this back on topic. As I'm sure other people are are interested in the technical aspects and issues regarding this device.. Like I said earlier my s-turtle arrived Monday. And now the fun begins. 

 

For the those following:
I am using a Sony A6400 in a Nauticam housing. I bought the S-Turtle Mobie to use fiber optics over a long run, think underwater studio and don't want to use the pop up strobe.

OUT OF THE HOUSING I've triggered my Sea & Sea YS-D3's over 20ft using Asahi 613 multicore with the end directly touching the Turtle. LED's. IN THE HOUSING I've had absolutely ZERO luck trying to get the YS-D3's to fire. ZERO. 

Also there seems to be no way to easily align the LED pads of the Mobie to be exactly centered. I am open to all suggestions. The A6400 housing seems to have a prism built in as well? 

-Scott

Just to confirm you cannot trigger the YS-D3 over any length of cable when the trigger is in the housing?  Certainly would seem to be an alignment problem.  How are they attached - it looks like it uses stick on pads?   It seems it would be critical to centre the LED directly over the fibre.  The prism is probably not helping  if indeed it is a prism as you would need to centre the LED optically.

Questions about the flash window - looking at pics in the manual to it looks like the flash window is flat on both sides and the plastic moulding with the ports for the fibre optics looks like it is sloping upwards.  It is impossible to confirm this without the housing in the hand.  I would suggest to take off the moulding with ports to check.  You can undo the two allen screws above.  See this pic:

Then try to align the fibre end over the LED in the window and try triggering again.  If this works you need to come up with a way to hold the fibre optic ends square on to the window and aligned with the LEDs.   I know other housings have fibre optic port plate that holds them square on,  The arrangement probably works with the built in flash as there is so much more light.

6 hours ago, stuartv said:

 You said that you always help your customers who buy the Turtle from you or your dealer. Unfortunately, that was not how I felt after my experience.

You also said you answered all my technical questions before I bought the product from Bluewater - which is true. And then you say "that is all we can do." That seems to be correct, as well. No more help from you after I bought from Bluewater.

I sent you an email that said:

"Hi Balazs,

I received my S-Turtle Smart trigger for Sony Mirrorless today, from Bluewater Photo Store. Picture attached.

This is for use with my Sony a7rIV camera, in a Nauticam housing.

I have a couple of questions:

First, it appears they sent me the Mobie version. What I received has the hotshoe separated from the trigger with a short cable.

Should I return this for the non-Mobie trigger, or does it matter?

Second, your website says these triggers come with a charging cable. There was no charging cable in the box. 

Did they send me an old version of the product that didn’t come with the cable? Should I have gotten a charging cable with it?

Third, the LED emitters on this do not look correct for my setup. Your website has pictures of LED emitters that are set in the top of stalks that would stick up inside the ports of my housing. 

Don’t I need a version of the trigger with that other type of LED?

Thanks.

-    Stuart"

The email had this picture attached.

Your response was this:

"Dear Stuart, 

Please contact with Bluewater in these cases.  
You bougth it from there not directly from Us. 
Regards
Balazs"

That does not seem to match your statement that you will support your customers who buy from your dealer.

Then later you said:

"i don't know what did you order!  You never mention this!"

As I mentioned earlier, that was on 1/21, when the day before, in the same email chain, I had said:

"I received my S-Turtle Smart trigger for Sony Mirrorless today, from Bluewater Photo Store. " I did tell you exactly what I ordered. I sent you a picture of what I received, and I asked you if what I received is what I ordered. You would not answer my question.

It was not my intention to air all this on this forum. But, since you chose to imply that I have posted "non real informations" on this forum, and then posted information that is "non real" - for example, "We always help to Our customers who buy the TURTLE from Us or from Our dealer" you have made me feel like my only recourse was to share the whole story here.

 

Hi Stuart,

this seems to be descending into a "he said" ....."he said" ...."he said" contest and is not being productive.  Remember interpretation of online forum posts is a two way street it is easy to interpret written word in a way the first poster did not intend no matter what your mother tongue is. 

remember that for most products support to choose and sell you the right version of a product and even the warranty lies with the importer and communication channels with the manufacturer are often closed or limited.  I think all Balazs is trying to say is if you were sold the wrong one you need to solve that with whoever you sold it to.  If I am not mistaken you have already returned the trigger to Bluewater.   Airing it on the forum only gets people's back up.     I think people now know they need to be sure they get a version that matches their housing as well as matches their camera which seems to be the main issue at hand.

Might I suggest everyone leaves it there.

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

Just to confirm you cannot trigger the YS-D3 over any length of cable when the trigger is in the housing?  Certainly would seem to be an alignment problem.  How are they attached - it looks like it uses stick on pads?   It seems it would be critical to centre the LED directly over the fibre.  The prism is probably not helping  if indeed it is a prism as you would need to centre the LED optically.

 

 

Hi Chris, 

That's exactly right. Any length of cable outside of the housing. And yes, it does use stick pads to attach. Probably going to need to find more as these already not sticky from all the fussing around. 

So, the tubes on the front are angled down to what looks like a glued in prism I will remove the front tomorrow and see what I actually find. 

-Scott

48 minutes ago, ScottAudette said:

Hi Chris, 

That's exactly right. Any length of cable outside of the housing. And yes, it does use stick pads to attach. Probably going to need to find more as these already not sticky from all the fussing around. 

So, the tubes on the front are angled down to what looks like a glued in prism I will remove the front tomorrow and see what I actually find. 

 

-Scott

 

First thing to do would be to try and trigger holding a bare cable on the prism - square on - before you remove the pads on the inside - if that doesn't work you are going to have a struggle triggering them in any way.

12 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

First thing to do would be to try and trigger holding a bare cable on the prism - square on - before you remove the pads on the inside - if that doesn't work you are going to have a struggle triggering them in any way.

Hi Chris,

Took the molding off and tried firing off the glass with a fresh cut of wire. Zilch, nothing. It's crazy because I have the newer 150 LEDS on it the cord and they are BRIGHT. But something is happening in the glass that is diffracting the light. 

I can even get cheap toslink cable to fire outside the housing. 

I have an older YS-D2 that I tried with too. Fires flawlessly outside, put the glass between it and nothing. 

I guess next step is to reach to Nauticam. I've spoken to Balazs at length as well. And this has stumped him. 

Or finally kit out my 1dx II housing i bought this summer. LOL.  (but I really love this A6400 kit its been a lot of fun!) And using the strobe pop really isn't an option because of the pre-flash. I'm shooting manual and need the ms of shutter lag to be short as possible. 


-Scott
 

18 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

Hi Stuart,

this seems to be descending into a "he said" ....."he said" ...."he said" contest and is not being productive.  Remember interpretation of online forum posts is a two way street it is easy to interpret written word in a way the first poster did not intend no matter what your mother tongue is. 

remember that for most products support to choose and sell you the right version of a product and even the warranty lies with the importer and communication channels with the manufacturer are often closed or limited.  I think all Balazs is trying to say is if you were sold the wrong one you need to solve that with whoever you sold it to.  If I am not mistaken you have already returned the trigger to Bluewater.   Airing it on the forum only gets people's back up.     I think people now know they need to be sure they get a version that matches their housing as well as matches their camera which seems to be the main issue at hand.

Might I suggest everyone leaves it there.

 

Agreed on the first part.

I started this thread to gather info about experience with using the S-Turtle. I think information on how the manufacturer deals with the customer after purchase is directly ON topic for this thread.

I agree that if I got the wrong one, I need to solve that with the place I bought it from. That was NEVER the issue. The issue was trying to get the manufacturer to confirm whether I did in fact receive the wrong one. That seems like a simple question, that would be easy to answer when given a picture of what I received and the information on what I ordered and what camera and housing I have.

This thread is about experience with the S-Turtle. I think it is completely relevant for people to know that if they don't buy the S-Turtle directly from TRT, then they should not expect an answer to even as simple and direct a question as that to be answered by the manufacturer. And also, the manufacturer won't answer the question about what is the difference between the 3 "S-Turtle Triggers for Sony Mirrorless" that are shown on the manufacturer's web page. I've asked in email and here in this thread and still gotten no answer to that.

4 hours ago, ScottAudette said:

Hi Chris,

Took the molding off and tried firing off the glass with a fresh cut of wire. Zilch, nothing. It's crazy because I have the newer 150 LEDS on it the cord and they are BRIGHT. But something is happening in the glass that is diffracting the light. 

I can even get cheap toslink cable to fire outside the housing. 

I have an older YS-D2 that I tried with too. Fires flawlessly outside, put the glass between it and nothing. 

I guess next step is to reach to Nauticam. I've spoken to Balazs at length as well. And this has stumped him. 

 

Or finally kit out my 1dx II housing i bought this summer. LOL.  (but I really love this A6400 kit its been a lot of fun!) And using the strobe pop really isn't an option because of the pre-flash. I'm shooting manual and need the ms of shutter lag to be short as possible. 


-Scott
 

Are you saying that the YS-D2 also does not fire when the LED is going through the housing's glass?
 

Are you able to try try using a different brand of strobe?

This really does all seem strange, given that I finally got the YS-D3s to work (with my cheap Howshot 613 cables) with my UWT trigger just by pushing the LEDs further up into the wells in the housing.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you can learn from Nauticam.

22 minutes ago, stuartv said:

Are you saying that the YS-D2 also does not fire when the LED is going through the housing's glass?
 

 

that is correct. once the LED's are behind the glass in the housing i get nothing. I've tried three different cables. And I'll have to ask around about another strobe. I don't have anything else handy. 

1 hour ago, ScottAudette said:

that is correct. once the LED's are behind the glass in the housing i get nothing. I've tried three different cables. And I'll have to ask around about another strobe. I don't have anything else handy. 

Have you tried cleaning both sides of the glass bulkhead with something like computer screen cleaner? 

1 hour ago, TimG said:

Have you tried cleaning both sides of the glass bulkhead with something like computer screen cleaner? 

And they always say the simplest solution is often the right answer ... cleaned the glass with windex inside and out. Now it fires. But It won't high speed in manual. Next problem! LOL

8 hours ago, ScottAudette said:

Hi Chris,

Took the molding off and tried firing off the glass with a fresh cut of wire. Zilch, nothing. It's crazy because I have the newer 150 LEDS on it the cord and they are BRIGHT. But something is happening in the glass that is diffracting the light. 

I can even get cheap toslink cable to fire outside the housing. 

I have an older YS-D2 that I tried with too. Fires flawlessly outside, put the glass between it and nothing. 

I guess next step is to reach to Nauticam. I've spoken to Balazs at length as well. And this has stumped him. 

-Scott
 

Is the window flat or is it indeed a prism?  With the housing in hand you should be able to tell by inspection.  Have you tried moving the cable around on the outside surface, if you place it over where the LED appears to be you would have to think that would be fine.  The other test you could try is to see if it will fire through window glass.  Do the LEDs appear to be square on to the glass?

Just to be complete have you tried triggering through the housing glass window with the onboard flash? 

edit, your reply came in when typing : 

it certainly seems like the transmission through the glass is marginal if a bit of dirt gives you trouble.  I imagine that window would get rather grotty as it is never gets cleaned and has water drying on it all the time.

Just now, ChrisRoss said:

 

Just to be complete have you tried triggering through the housing glass window with the onboard flash? 

Hi Chris, 

Not a prism, it looks like. Fired with flash. Tim, hit the nail on the head. Cleaned the glass and the trigger started working! LOL

-Scott

3 minutes ago, ScottAudette said:

Hi Chris, 

Not a prism, it looks like. Fired with flash. Tim, hit the nail on the head. Cleaned the glass and the trigger started working! LOL

-Scott

good that you've got it firing,  seems odd that dirty glass was enough, your photo showed it looking grotty but not terrible.  Keeping it clean might be a challenge, I assume it's because water has dried on their leaving deposits constantly, because you can't wipe it down like other windows on the housing.  I use a blower bulb to blow water out of there when drying off the housing after rinsing.

4 hours ago, stuartv said:

I agree that if I got the wrong one, I need to solve that with the place I bought it from. That was NEVER the issue. The issue was trying to get the manufacturer to confirm whether I did in fact receive the wrong one. That seems like a simple question, that would be easy to answer when given a picture of what I received and the information on what I ordered and what camera and housing I have.

This thread is about experience with the S-Turtle. I think it is completely relevant for people to know that if they don't buy the S-Turtle directly from TRT, then they should not expect an answer to even as simple and direct a question as that to be answered by the manufacturer. And also, the manufacturer won't answer the question about what is the difference between the 3 "S-Turtle Triggers for Sony Mirrorless" that are shown on the manufacturer's web page. I've asked in email and here in this thread and still gotten no answer to that.

 

Yes I can see that and we've established the situation, which is why I suggested everyone leave it there.  If Balazs wants to come on the post and reply as requested of course that would be welcome, if not... there is nothing more to be gained from re-hashing the issue.

1 hour ago, ScottAudette said:

And they always say the simplest solution is often the right answer ... cleaned the glass with windex inside and out. Now it fires. But It won't high speed in manual. Next problem! LOL

LOL, brilliant!