Lensrentals has done their annual top rental products of the year, and as usual, Canon dominates. But there are a few surprises in the lists.
First up is the top 20 products, and Canon takes 12 of the top 20 positions, including the entire top 7 products. But what is a bit of a surprise is that the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II is the number #1 rented item of the year, and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM III is #4.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that much, the Canon EF mount still enjoys the largest market share of any mount, so as much as we think people all moved to RF, there will still be quite a few on the EF mount for many years to come.
MOST POPULAR PHOTO & VIDEO GEAR OF 2024
Sony places a healthy second with the other eight products. I’m surprised that Nikon and Fujifilm strike out on the rentals. Besides the EF lens popularity, the Canon 5D Mark IV outrenting any Sony camera body seems to be an interesting statistic. It could be that people don’t want to purchase the EOS 5D Mark IV and would rather rent, but what does that say about Sony cameras?
If we look at the top 5 brands (by revenue) rented by Lensrentals and compare them from 2023 to 2024, they have all gained at the expense of others, and Sigma has maintained its share. The most significant gains were from Nikon, which is good to see, but Nikon is still far behind the big two, Canon and Sony.
| Marketshare 2023 | Marketshare 2024 | Change % | |
| Canon | 23.96% | 25.68% | 7.17% |
| Sony | 19.15% | 20.44% | 6.76% |
| Nikon | 4.88% | 5.91% | 21.03% |
| DJI | 3.29% | 3.75% | 13.82% |
| Sigma | 3.35% | 3.33% | -0.32% |
Another thing that jumped out at me is the total camera mount share. This takes all the lens rentals and sums them up by mount. As you can see, Canon dominates, and is even pulling away from Sony, especially if you add the EF and RF market share.
| Mount | 2023 Rentals | 2024 Rentals | Change |
| Canon RF | 25.08% | 29.94% | 19.39% |
| Sony E | 18.69% | 19.39% | 3.76% |
| Canon EF | 23.07% | 19.16% | -16.93% |
| Nikon Z | 4.22% | 6.61% | 56.47% |
For all I whine and complain about Canon, they have executed a dramatic change of direction nearly flawlessly as the Canon EF market share is declining at less of a rate than the Canon RF mount is improving. Nikon seems to be trying to bounce back but let’s be real 4.22% to 6.61% is still only 2.4% gain year on year, Nikon has a long way to struggle back to where they were 5 or 6 years ago, if they ever do.
Lensrentals breaks out more of their rental statistics in greater detail than we will do here, so check out their entire article here.
Source: Lensrentals.com
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"The R100! Just to trigger @Richard CR !" :ROFLMAO:
Cameras are ‘durable goods’ with a useful life of longer than 5 years. Lots of EF lenses are still rented because lots of people are still shooting with a DSLR. Logical.
One thing I do wonder about is the composition of LensRentals’ customer base. Are they mostly working pros needing an additional/back up set of gear sometimes? Are they ‘try before you buy’ customers? The popularity of workhorse lenses on the list suggests the former, as does the high ranking of the 5DIV on the list (you want your additional/backup camera to match your primary camera).
I was just talking to Roger today. They sort of cover everything. They have a massive B2B ;) revenue stream now with "Hollywood" and corporate productions. Working pros stick the rentals on their invoices. One doesn't have to insure a bunch of gear, doesn't have to depreciate it and all that..... A much better accounting and balance sheet way to do it. Also lots of vacation rentals, especially for big trips like safaris and what not.
They really cover every type of customers.
What's interesting is brand people. Nikon has ALWAYS been a slow rental brand, I even experienced it at Lens Rentals Canada, and at that time, Nikon was 35-40% of the market and Canon gear left the shelves easily 10 to 1 more than Nikon. The Nikon customer is just "different". We could never figure out why.
Unrelated....
I don't know if Roger ever covered it on the blog. One time they rented a pile of gear for a Southwest commercial. They were filming the painting of their livery. The gear came back blue, yellow and red! They reached out to Southwest and they just paid for all of it. They have lots of stories like that.
I benefited from the other side of that, my MP-E 65 was bought used from a lawyer who bought the lens for a project then didn't need it any more. I paid $500 for a barely used lens that was selling new for $1000 at the time.
That totally makes sense, we did find we had customers that were always asking when we were cycling lenses out. They didn't want to rent them, they wanted to buy them for a good price and sell them when they were done with them. We warrantied them for 90 days and allowed the warranty to be transfered. I think we had one warranty repair in all the years. It was nice to be able to easily sell used inventory.
Lenses were cycled out after 200 days of rental, sometimes sooner if white paint got beaten to heck. Camera bodies were after 150 days.
I miss having a few hundred lenses at my disposal. Should have kept a damn 800. :mad:
Nowadays I only rent specialty lenses like the f/1.2 ones, but the rental places seem to be getting rid of multi-day discounts, so I’m keeping my eye on used and grey market versions. The 50L 1.2 is €1900 on the grey market, renting it for €400 isn’t making a lot of sense for me.
No big surprise, they are a distant #3/#4 in total market share.
I sadly run out of space when using 85mm (or 56mm on the M6II), my surroundings are sized for 50-ish mm :) I does work excellent when used in busy places away from home, you can totally put all other kids in the bokeh and only have yours in focus for school functions!
R100 haters be doomed!