6:00 PM
I had my day-sleep to recover of the night work. Wow, thanks you all for such a support ! We are warmly chocked.
We got some mails of not working tracking numbers: it is normal, DHL picked up the filters early afternoon … I was sleeping. My wife handled with them all afternoon, for some address issues of fans living in not really common areas. At this moment your filters are passing the customs. DHL will publish the tracking afterwards, in 2-3 hours. So please wait for tomorrow.
I had a positive conversation with the CEO of the factory (who brought by airplane the filters himself last night and flew back at 11pm) :
- shortly we can make all filters if there is a minimum demand of 100
- they earned nothing on the DJI-filter production as a lot of R&D, but they were excited to make them (I like this kind of factory, exceptional in China)
- they are making a lot of filters for western companies and only are interested for high level products, they have no brand name, always acting in sub-contracts. Again, when you buy in the West, 80% of your products are made in China, even the top level brands. They are only ashamed to say it is made here. So they re-pack or transform a very bit to claim "made in the west". China: the only problem is to find the right factory and add your western creativity, they will make it.
- I would like to help them, as they deserve by an exceptional service, perhaps to set up a brand for them. He told me for which brands they produce filters, I was very surprised, western brands that say "made in the US". By the way they bought the DJI-filters too to analyze (after my broken ND4 I sent), it was coming from the Netherlands (?!)
- We analyzed to fulfill your wishes:
* all new filters to be produced has a very minimum of 100 pieces for production: UV, skylight, polarizer, gradual ND, ….
* concerning the polarizing: personally, I think it is useless for video in the case of flying a drone: polarizing means filter certain light waves to get these nice skylights etc.. Light waves have different directions reaching the sensor. To use a polarizer you need first to decide you flying direction, set up the grade of polarizing (not so easy because you are not yet in the air with the Inspire), keep the same cap during your flight (!!!) . In practice: we have a 17 minutes flight range, in the air we like to record as much as useful videos for our project, different angles, this is NOT possible with a polarizer as the polarizing effect will change with each angle. You will need to fly back every time to adjust your polarizer….. you will need 10 batteries and you will never have a nice flight with smooth turnings, that is just what we want. Conclusion, useless for video, except if you want 1 straight line capture.
- developing new filters meeting the standards of Schneider (I am fan) or the sister company B+W: true match variable ND's for video-cameras or now popular DSLR's. But this is not a DJI-subject.
- making a line of filters for the GoPro…… already a lot in the market, mostly medium quality manufacturers … Our CEO has a Gropro and made filters for himself (he is a very sportive guy) just for his own excitement, never produced for mass production. Thinking about …. but too much work for us, we need to set new company, we already have 3 to manage ….. and this year I will have 60 !
- the CEO likes your comments for a constantly improvement. Chinese like western to make their copies higher level ! That is perfect working together, same philosophy as applied DJI by the way.
- new developments will be managed in co-operation with me, and yes will will take a small profit from now. Too much personal investment for free, is not normal neither. We needed to refuse or to delay some video orders because of the filter. But we do not regret, as you warm heart support made us happy and that is the most important.
Meanwhile my wife rejoins me at 6:43 pm as DHL is still calling her to fix some zip code issues, not found in the DHL data-base. But until now, we could solve all. As some fans mentioned their zip-code without country ! So reading back you private mails…… we could found out where you are living. Example: zip-code with PR …… it was in Puerto Rico !! So they are still analyzing before scanning and leave QD-airport, but it will be today !
Thanks again to all of you, you were really encouraging, from now we will focus on the second shipment after 4 days presence on the media fair in Qingdao (we already missed the first day).
Have a happy flight season.
Your faithful,
Renaat & Aileen