The making of Lee Filters.....

I must say...I am quite impressed with the work involved manufacturing these.
 
So labour intensive, no wonder it takes so long to get hold of them!

Very interesting little video
 
Thanks for the link :thumbs:

That company is about 50 years behind times........ It's in serious need of bringing into the 21st century .................... I think I'll buy it :D
 
Splog said:
That company is about 50 years behind times........ It's in serious need of bringing into the 21st century .................... I think I'll buy it :D
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I have to agree. This is incredibly inefficient for a process that should be easily scaled up. Even though I like the idea of the tight quality control, I can't really see the company going anywhere if they have to rely on the 20-odd years experience of their filter dying staff.
 
Remarkable bit of information, but how they keep everything so hands on is just crazy. With a bit of investment they could easily double the output and reduce costs.

Great bit of film though...
 
posiview said:
Thanks for that Tom, very interesting and I'll reduce my annoyance at the fact they cost so much...:'(

Cheers.
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I watched the video, and ok they are hand made, but that set up of theres is nothing special, I still think they are over priced, and a 10 weeks waiting time is unacceptable and if another company were to start up and produce some good quality filters Lee would go out of business
 
I've watched the video before and I still can't believe how inefficient the process is.
Especially the dunking - why is that done by hand?
Surely they could make a machine and write a simple computer program to dunk a whole line of filters at the same time, rigged up with light meters so the density can be measured regularly, instead of the blind luck and judgement way they have of doing things.
I'd guess 99% of their operational costs are labour.
 
Interesting to watch but I've long given up on Lee- I have neither the patience or the planning to actually bother with them and use albeit marignally inferior Hitechs.

While you don't want companies to lose their heritage, modernisation could transform the business- or maybe it couldn't. Look at Sigma, they mass produce lenses and most of them don't work right first time round:naughty:. Perhaps Lee are worried about a drop in quality.
 
interesting video but I have to agree with comments here. Other than cooking bit, all the other process can be speed up significantly. And cooking up can be improved by using multiple / bigger ovens at least. It looks like owner is enjoying all the profit and not investing any of it back to the company :D

On a side note, I haven't seen any male employee in there :thinking:
 
WOW hard to believe, thats like going back 20 years to British engineering. Would have thought there was a better way i have just bought a set of Hi tech ND filters wish i had bought the Lee's know i know they are very expensive for what they are but the old school British engineering sold the Lee filter for me pure nostalgia.
 
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