I just wanted to put this out there to the community and to the Freefly Team. I have a small production company, and I was an early adopter to pick up an M10 and at the time it made sense to finance it. Well one year later, I've still got 9500 left to pay (or 17k including interest on lease) which is more than a new M10. As you can imagine, this doesn't really sit well with me, as I could pick up a second M10 for less than I owe, and if I didn't care for my credit score I may just have defaulted by now. 6k for a new M15 is definitely out of reach, with barely one month notice to fundraise and now september 30th is past. still after, it brings my cost at nearly 24k. And that doesn't include the FF, Paralinx, Monitors, Casing, and accessories that I've purchased on top, instead of the 3k price that was originally announced publicly. And then another 3500 for the remote. As a small company, I'm in a situation that feels really steep to stay current in, and I feel like it's becoming extremely difficult to match the features that newer adopters can offer by paying a fraction of the price. I feel like it would be an honorable move on Freefly's part if they offered some options for people who paid the original price, that are structured in a way that allows for more time to fundraise some special offers. I, like many others, chose freefly because we believe in the product, and it's truly a hard blow that some of us who don't have large budgets are left in the dust. My suggestions would be: maybe cutting back on m5 "give aways" to save some funds, and allocating those resources to meeting halfway on upgrades - how about 3000 for the M15? how about a FF remote with special 50% pricing ? or 50% on a tero? how about letting us pick one of these options by default, or doing 5 monthly give aways geared towards early users? and give us till the end of the year. Even me, a 29 year old independent film maker, can probably get motivated and come up with something more to give despite the challenges of another 10k bill on my m10. Just my 2 cents. I come with humility, and invite the perspective on others, and any opportunities to help pay off my bill.
You don´t even imagine what I am loosing on this end... I suggested and suggested Freefly didn´t come up with an answer. I am looking for another area of buiness...the gimbal business is going to die soon. So many options and so many steady shots that stabilization will soon be out of fashion. The big bucks we´ve spent have become change... with the gimbals at 50% and the Ronin at 3k the flood will be so big that nobody will stand stable shots anymore.
I really feel for you Adrien and am sad to hear this news. I think the contribution Freefly has given to the industry is amazing but sadly so have been the prices. As an FS700 owner of a new growing video production business I was hanging out for the M15 as my first Freefly purchase but was frustrated by the potential price as no one else could build a unit like Freefly. I have also bought a Cinestar x8 rig but all the way along I could not get one bit of technical info from Freefly as everything is proprietary info. I wanted to connect my Steadicam arm to the M15 and thought wow I am about to spend all this money on two rigs and the best I was told was - go find someone in Australia who has one (M10) and measure that. With no real M15 ETA news, one day on the FF forum a guy posted a link to the G-Rig - I ordered one within a few hours of seeing it. The G-Rig team are mega helpful and we have swapped lots of developmental ideas - such a huge difference in approach and I can not wait to promote their product to my colleagues. What is extremely interesting is the price $11,900 - and now after the M10 owners being offered a $3K upgrade just very recently how unusual for the M15 to drop to a matching price. I can only imagine the anger and tears that have flowed for existing M10 owners who really wanted the M15, potentially getting so little return for their investment now. Whilst there will be some very happy 2nd hand M10 buyers around, I think this will leave such a bad impression on Freefly for what they have done to their loyal customers which is such a shame after their amazing contribution to the industry. I believe they really should step up to the compensation plate and give a big apology for taking this action.
.. sorry guys, but i also had investments of about 25.000,00 € to get my M-10 system up and running . But it paid back more than double in the first year, so i really can´t feel that big pain than you do. I expected the prices dropping much earlier, they are really common in the industry, look at RED or Blackmagic…. I keep getting jobs as you will, because the system doesn´t create good shots alone, it´s you, the early adopters with now a year of experience who are creating good stabilized shots... All the people i now, who where buying a Ronin or other copies have smaller Sony or DSLR cams on it, guess why? Just my 2cents... Best, Wolf
Like others have said, if you build your ability to land jobs by just being able to pull off a steady shot you are not marketing yourself in the correct way.