Maven Magnetic Filters Long-Term Review
MAVEN Filters Wave 2 Starts Now
Hello From Adana, Turkey! I’m here working with Water Mission to bring clean drinking water to victims of the February earthquakes.
We have long since finished fulfilling all of our Kickstarter orders. If you have any questions, please reach out to my assistant Adam: support@michaelthemaven.com and we will take care of you.
Over the next several weeks, we will be introducing many new products. Sometime in the Summer of 2023, will see our second Kickstarter for MAVEN filters (again offering deep discounts for our backers) as well as select items coming direct to market. The first filter product of Wave 2 came from feedback of countless users like you. These requests were for an adapter that added better weather-sealing, while still allowing to swap magnetic filters.
So here it is: The MAVEN threaded Splash Guard Adapter:
It combines the properties of the regular magnetic adapter, with the regular splash (UV) guard, including the adapter color & Splash guard knurling into a unique magnetic ring design. This is the adapter you will want to use when shooting in very dirty, dusty or harsh weather conditions, protecting your front element of your lens. It wont bump off, and will accept other MAVEN magnetic filters of the same size.
Because this is a new design, we are starting with sizes 82mm, 77mm, 72mm, and 67mm threads, expanding to new sizes on demand. last.
The first set of these filters have already arrived into our inventory in the USA and will ship no later than the next business day, which means we will start shipping them on Monday May 8th, 2023. There are a very limited number of them in country, and once they are gone, they are gone until our next shipment arrives later this year.
What else is coming? (Sneak Peek Images! )
By Summer of 2023, we will see the following filters announced or available through a second Kickstarter Campaign. Most of the ring designs have been finalized and we are finishing our quality control on the lenses themselves. Each of these filters have their own unique appearance and tactile identifiers.
3 ND + CPL Filter (~3mm Notch)
6 ND + CPL Filter (~6mm Notch)
10 ND + CPL Filter (~10mm Notch)
Combo filters combine 2 filters into one, reducing vinetting at wide focal lengths, and simplifying the number of filters to carry. In this case combo filters mean an ND filter with a CPL. We can’t rate them as color neutral (as no polarizer is, based on the laws of physics), but they will be as close to neutral as possible, minus the polarizing effects. We will likely need to develop a new test or expression to define this, perhaps “Tier 1 Like”
2 Stop ND Filter
Known Issues with a few sizes of Step-Up rings
We have learned that some of the higher number serial number step up rings in sizes 77-82mm, 72-77mm, 67-82 and 67-77mm are having some issues. (Most of the ones we sent out with our Kickstarter and Indiegogo orders are fine. We have received about 3 dozen reports out of several thousands sent, that when using the step-up ring adapters, they are not as strong or do not seem to fit the filter or cap correctly. It can be described as “way too weak on one side”. There are enough of these reports to know that something went wrong.
I look at every hiccup like this as an opportunity to learn and improve the product as well as our service.
Here is our plan moving forward:
1. If you have a step-up ring that fits the above description (or even in different sizes or products), reach out to us: support@michaelthemaven.com. My assistant Adam will give you some instructions, and in most cases we will be sending you a confirmed working replacement. This means that we will likely open the package in our inventory and confirm the replacement is good to go before sending it to you. This is all covered as part of your lifetime warranty, so there will be no extra costs to you, including additional shipping that might occur.
2. We are developing some new tools, tests and protocols to make sure this does not happen again, but it also means needing to go through our inventory to find the bad ones.
3. We are making some design changes to increase the overall strength of the step-up adapter rings t put them on par or stronger than the regular adapters.
4. We are prototyping a number of other adapters with different functionalities.
We expect this to be mostly resolved in the next 1-2 weeks (Mid April), but as always we are happy to solve problems as they come.
This entire journey has been a wonderful learning experience and I will continue to use every opportunity to look at where we have fallen short on as a way to make a better product and experience. Its hard to believe how far we have come and the future is looking very bright!
Thank you for your patience!
Best wishes!
Michael