Rental fees for camera equipment

[emilysium]

My local camera store rents camera bodies, such as the 40D or 50D, in the ballpark of 130 or 140 dollars. But they rent lenses that cost as much or more for less than 20!

I understand there being some price differences - Canon doesn't come out with a new version of a lens every year, and lenses don't have as much sensitive electronic equipment. But should there really be such a difference?

[FlyingPhotog]

My guess is that they rent glass much more frequently than they rent bodies.

They're making lens rental money on volume.

[WMS]

If you have a good working relationship with the owner ask him/her why.

Wayne

[aroundlsu]

Compare the prices to lensrentals.com and borrowlenses.com. Legitimate rentals places such as these tend to set the rental price at 1/20th the value of the equipment per week. So a $2,000 lens will cost about $100/week to rent. However, I noticed Adorama and B&H are MUCH higher on the rental rate.

[Matthew Craggs]

This is a complete guess, but perhaps it has something to do with being able to get more rentals out of the lenses than the bodies. I figure you have the lenses much longer than you have the bodies, and they don't become obsolete as quickly.

Okay, I don't mean obsolete too literally. It's just that a three year old camera body doesn't look too tempting when there is new gear coming all the time, but a fast three year old L series lens is still as appealing no matter what came after it.

[RentalInfo]

Matthew hit the nail on the head. Bodies break more often and they also go obsolete (from a rental standpoint) much, much faster than the lenses do. Thus, the need to get back the investment over a shorter amount of time.
Walk-in stores are also catering to a much different consumer (pro photographers) than most of the online rental places, which does a lot to explain the price difference between the two different ways of doing business. Most pro photogs only need the equipment for a day or two, and many times they pass the rental cost straight through to their clients. Plus, the walk-in stores have more overhead, and their prices were set long before the online rental houses started business, so they couldn't just lower them out of hand.
Online rental stores tend to have more clients from the hobbyist/semi-pro category. Those consumers are usually far more price conscious.

[niqqunos]

I would guess that its simply a popularity issue - lenses would be rented much more often than bodies (because everyone has a body that they're familiar with however may need some glass that they don't already own for a job-specific purpose) and the bodies are there on a "once in a while just in case" basis, hence higher prices.