The most rented gear at Lensrentals.com for 2024? #1 is a nice surprise

#6
Canon sells far more cameras than anyone else. More people rent Canon gear than other brands. Not really pushing the boundaries of logical deduction.

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).
 
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#7
neuroanatomist said:
Canon sells far more cameras than anyone else. More people rent Canon gear than other brands. Not really pushing the boundaries of logical deduction.

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).
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I used it as a "try before you buy" on a US vacation trip, I did indeed buy the GP-E2 and EF-S60mm macro after that trip :)
 
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#8
neuroanatomist said:
Canon sells far more cameras than anyone else. More people rent Canon gear than other brands. Not really pushing the boundaries of logical deduction.

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).
Click to expand...

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.
 
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#9
koenkooi said:
I used it as a "try before you buy" on a US vacation trip, I did indeed buy the GP-E2 and EF-S60mm macro after that trip :)
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I see that frequently as advice, and it does make sense for some. Personally, I'm just not a renter. Lensrentals charges ~4% of the lens cost for a week rental. Shipping is not free, either. As an example, I bought the RF 100-400 thinking it would be a great travel lens for a trip to Italy. I'd have needed a 3-week rental and that plus shipping would have been 21% of what I paid for the lens buying it new. I'd rather not 'waste' the money. As I said, personal decision. The reason I could see for it is if you needed something for a short-term, one-off project it would make sense to rent it.

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.
 
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#10
neuroanatomist said:
I see that frequently as advice, and it does make sense for some. Personally, I'm just not a renter. Lensrentals charges ~4% of the lens cost for a week rental. Shipping is not free, either. As an example, I bought the RF 100-400 thinking it would be a great travel lens for a trip to Italy. I'd have needed a 3-week rental and that plus shipping would have been 21% of what I paid for the lens buying it new. I'd rather not 'waste' the money. As I said, personal decision. The reason I could see for it is if you needed something for a short-term, one-off project it would make sense to rent it.

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.
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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:
 
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#11
neuroanatomist said:
I see that frequently as advice, and it does make sense for some. Personally, I'm just not a renter. Lensrentals charges ~4% of the lens cost for a week rental. Shipping is not free, either. As an example, I bought the RF 100-400 thinking it would be a great travel lens for a trip to Italy. I'd have needed a 3-week rental and that plus shipping would have been 21% of what I paid for the lens buying it new. I'd rather not 'waste' the money. As I said, personal decision. The reason I could see for it is if you needed something for a short-term, one-off project it would make sense to rent it.

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.
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This was more than 10 years ago, the USD/Euro exchange rate was extremely favourable and lensrentals had a promotion, that made it attractive to rent.

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.
 
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#12
koenkooi said:
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.
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CPW is great for the US/Canada. I just ordered the RF 85/1.2L DS through them for $2270, less than the cost of a refurbished 85L non-DS.
 
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#14
neuroanatomist said:
CPW is great for the US/Canada. I just ordered the RF 85/1.2L DS through them for $2270, less than the cost of a refurbished 85L non-DS.
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I sadly can't find the DS in the grey market, the non-DS is €2280 compared to €3249 from brick and mortar photostores. So $2270 is an excellent deal for the DS!

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!
 
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#19
neuroanatomist said:
CPW is great for the US/Canada. I just ordered the RF 85/1.2L DS through them for $2270, less than the cost of a refurbished 85L non-DS.
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If you get a chance to post a portrait (or whatever) photo with some maximum bokeh balls, I'd really like to see how they look with the DS. I don't know if you also have the 85mm without DS but if so then you could post a comparison if you wanted to.
 
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#20
Canon Rumors said:
Lenses were cycled out after 200 days of rental, sometimes sooner if white paint got beaten to heck. Camera bodies were after 150 days.
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Interesting - and provides an insight into why the rental charges appear so high. Using Neuro's ~4% of lens cost per weekly rental, 200 days is about 30 weeks, so that allows for a decent 'profit margin' for the renter over the life (allowing for resale value etc).
 
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