Specialised Imaging, of Tring, UK, has been assigned the worldwide rights by California-based SFW to manufacture and market its new range of optical triggers. The OT-series trigger has been re-engineered by Specialised Imaging to reduce its size and improve robustness.
The new OT3 optical trigger is battery-driven to make the system portable and isolate its operation from interference from ground loops, noise spiking or brownout. The sensor is a blue enhanced array of twelve diodes that has a spectral response from 300 to 1,300nm. A 700nm cut-off filter has been incorporated to reduce the range from 300 to 700nm so that it is much less likely to saturate from high IR sources, such as clouds.
A further benefit of the OT3 is that it can be used as an IR muzzle flash detector as well as a sky-screen detector. Due to the design of the OT3, the sky-screen reference can be artificial (for example, a white board or an LED light array) thus removing any operational dependence on good weather.
The OT3 Optical Trigger is aimed at the outdoor market and will offer particular benefits for use with high speed cameras on proofing ranges.
