Manitobahunter
lvl.4
Canada
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I recently purchased a set of Polar Pro's shutter collection for the MIni 4 Pro, so an ND8, ND32 and ND128. They came in a nice little plastic case, small enough to carry in the factory soft case or a storage slot in my hard case. I liked Polar Pro's approach to their filters and given their reputation with camera filters, I expected top quality glass, and everything to be a step up from the other offerings available. They suggest using the ND 128 as a 64, the ND32 as a 16 and the ND8 as a 4, by setting the ISO on the camera to 200. It was great to have all the options in the Freewell 16 pack, but I mostly used the UV, ND 8, 64 and LPR filters, and having less options may well make for more flying and less filter changing
So I didn't mind paying half the price for three Polar Pro filters that I did for the Freewell Mega 16 pack. Having sold high end optics, Kahles, Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica, Shmidt and Bender,etc, in the outdoor industry for many years, I've been educated by these companies and have a working knowledge and experience in optics, and am well aware I get what I pay for.
Previously, I'd used a 6 pack of K+F ND filters for my Mini 2, and Freewells Mega 16 pack of filters, as well as one of K+F's variable ND's for my Mini 3 Pro. In my experience the quality control of Freewell and K+F as well as glass quality are comparable, and certainly do what they are designed to do given the price point.
So Polar Pro shipped me the ND filters, I purchased them directly from their website. Shipping took the usual amount of time given that I'm in BC, Canada and I had to pay the import and tax fee's to get them through the border, which makes them about double in Chinada bucks what one would pay in the USA, lol.
Right away they were easier to handle than the filters I'd previously owned, and the case had some cut outs above and below the filter in the foam that made it easy to pick them in and out of the case without smudging them or dropping them, nice!.
Fitment onto the camera face was concerning, taking a bit of force to rotate and clip them onto the camera. I'd never removed the factory lense cover, so everything was brand new. After messing around for some time, I got the ND 8 to mount to the camera face, and the ND 32 seemed not as tight and mounted after a few attempts, the 128 is too tight in my opinion and I've yet to mount it. I've been in contact with Polar Pro customer service by email, and they graciously offered a replacement set, so thats all good. The frame is Aluminum, rather than the factory plastic, and Polar Pro has stated they require some break in time. This could also be an issue with variation in manufacturing on the lugs used on the camera face of the drone, hence the wear in on the lugs with a more precise aluminum frame, where as the Factory DJI cover and the other plastic frame filters have more clearance and flex, so we don't notice. Hard to say really...
They are a bit heavier, something you'll notice right away with the camera hanging down when the drones off, perhaps because of the aluminum frame, and good glass is dense, and is rarely light, a nessesary trade for good optics.
I've been out flying a number of times with the ND8, and ND32, and in my opinion glass quality is definitely a cut above, with neutral, natural color retained, and much less lense distortion than the other filters I've used on my drones.
Not much use to have a good quality camera, and then clip one or more peices of low quality glass in front of it. So I'm happy to see the Polar Pro filters are visibly superior in this regard.
Overall I'm happy I purchased the Polar Pro filters over another Freewell Mega 16 pack.
Their customer service has been reasonable and helpful, and if I can get the fitment issue solved, I'll be purchasing the Circular Polarizer and Vivid Collection of polarized ND's as well.
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