renting lenses?

I am considering renting a lens (70-200 2.8) to play with and see if I really just can't live without one

What is your experience renting a lens?

Has anyone rented from LensFly?

I've only rented from LensRentals. It was a very good experience. I also bought two used lenses from them (first was LensRentals, second was their spin-off LensAuthority). I rented a TS-E 24mm and it came when expected. Return shipping was easy as I was near a FedEx shipper. The purchased lenses were as advertised (24-105 and 100-400 Mk I), and were at a fair price. I would rent again from LensRentals, and would purchased used again from LensAuthority.

I don't know about LensFly, so I cannot say.

Good luck!

if you were a member of CPS, you could borrow one for a couple days and see if you liked it or not. I did this with the original 35L and found that I liked the Sigma Art better. Will probably be doing this with a couple other lenses in the next year. i should note though that now they only allow one evaluation loan per product lifetime vs two like that used to do.

I've rented lenses from Borrowlenses a few times and it was a good experience.

https://www.borrowlens​es.com

Rent a good amount from ATS Rentals I find they tend to be a few dollars less when ever I am shopping for a rental, and their is no added insurance fee as it is built into the rental price.

Never had a problem, everything arrives in working order and return shipping is a breeze.

ThomasDidymus wrote in post #18012687
I am considering renting a lens (70-200 2.8) to play with and see if I really just can't live without one

What is your experience renting a lens?

Has anyone rented from LensFly?

My experience renting lenses is that it is so expensive you might as well just buy a used lens, shoot it for a while, then sell it on the classifieds. This way, you et to use the lens for a while, but don't lose so darn much money in the process. You can sell a used lens for the same price - sometimes even a little more to cover shopping and paypal fees - than you paid for it.

Lens rental companies charge an arm and a leg just for a week's rental. In fact, it is sometimes as high as 8% of the price of the lens f you figure postage into it. Geez - at those rates, if you rented a lens 12 times for a week each time, you could have just bought the lens for that amount of money. Or, you could buy it, use it for 12 weeks (or a year or even two or three years) and then sell it for what you paid. Net cost for unlimited use = ZERO dollars!

I can rent a $20,000 car for a week for $200. Why, then, does it cost $464 to rent a $12,000 lens for 6 days? Whenever I've rented cars and power equipment like rototillers and jackhammers I feel like I got my money's worth. After having a rented lens for a week, I always feel that I didn't get my money's worth at all.

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I'm with Tom R. on this one. Good glass holds its value. Canon L-lenses seem to fair a bit better, but overall, buying used and reselling generally costs me about the cost of postage. You pay postage EVERY TIME you rent a lens. I've also been lucky enough to see some lenses for more than I paid for them.

Of course, I have lost my shirt, too. NEVER pay full retail new prices for ANY efs lens. THAT is expensive. Comparison: I bought an 18-135 IS new ($549, I think). Sold it for, IIRC, $150. I bought a USED 135L for $780. I used it for over a year, then sold it for $815 (broke even considering S&H).

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18013902
My experience renting lenses is that it is so expensive you might as well just buy a used lens, shoot it for a while, then sell it on the classifieds. This way, you et to use the lens for a while, but don't lose so darn much money in the process. You can sell a used lens for the same price - sometimes even a little more to cover shopping and paypal fees - than you paid for it.

Lens rental companies charge an arm and a leg just for a week's rental. In fact, it is sometimes as high as 8% of the price of the lens f you figure postage into it. Geez - at those rates, if you rented a lens 12 times for a week each time, you could have just bought the lens for that amount of money. Or, you could buy it, use it for 12 weeks (or a year or even two or three years) and then sell it for what you paid. Net cost for unlimited use = ZERO dollars!

I can rent a $20,000 car for a week for $200. Why, then, does it cost $464 to rent a $12,000 lens for 6 days? Whenever I've rented cars and power equipment like rototillers and jackhammers I feel like I got my money's worth. After having a rented lens for a week, I always feel that I didn't get my money's worth at all.

.

Actually for many pros renting kit that is only going to be used occasionally is a much better business proposition than buying. If you are only going to use a specific bit of kit tow or three times a year why keep potentially thousands of Dollars/Pounds/Euros tied up in a bit of kit even if it was bought secondhand? You will be factoring in the cost of the rental in the fee you are charging the customer anyway. Not only to you need to consider that, but all your camera kit is considered as capital expenditure, which makes life a little harder when it comes to your business taxes, renting on the other hand is simply taxed as any other cost of doing business. I appreciate that for those like Tom who are effectively shooting on spec, then ownership may offer better returns, as long as you can afford to have the money tied up in a, admittedly slowly, depreciating asset.

The other main reason for renting can simply be that you don't have the money to tie up in even a secondhand lens. I used to regularly rent a 100-400L for a weekend. It would cost me around £80 all in for the three day hire, which actually meant I received the lens on Wednesday and shipped it back on the following Monday. At the time a nice secondhand 100-400L was around the£800 to £900 mark, and it was about £1200 new. So the rental was about 10% of the cost of a reasonable second hand lens. Yes it was rather annoying that I was having to spend that money, but at the time I did not have £800+ to put into a second hand lens, and if I did have that amount of cash I would have had to spend it on more important things. So I had to go with renting a couple of times a year for big events, and make do with what I had for the rest of the time. I have since had a friend buy me a Sigma 150-600C as a thank you for a big favour I did him. Having the lens does mean that I tend to use it more, simply because it is available, and since it was a gift it did not need to come out of the family budget, so no guilt there either.

Alan

Lots of good points in this thread on the costs. On the first take I agree with Tom Reichner, the cost of rentals seems excessive. But then I read Big Al's post and I realized that I was discounting the time-value of money, not to mention the reasonable consideration that a lot of people might not have the capital to sink into a used lens.

I was thinking about trying to quantify it......imagine you had three events over a 1 year period where you wanted to use somthing like a Canon 200-400 f/4 L lens.

This lens is about $12,000 retail, available for $10,000 on the used market, and rents for $435 a week (including postage). Now also imagine you have $10,000 available, and if you do not buy the lens you will instead buy a 1 year CD at 1.35%.

So this is pretty easy. If you rent the lens you spend 3 x $435, and you earn $135 from the CD. Net is $1170 cost to use the lens three times.

If you instead purchase the lens and re-sell after a year you do not earn anything from the CD, and you pay $25 for shipping and 3% Paypal fees. So that is $325 total cost.

Now here is the final kicker.....overall it looks like Tom is correct that so long as you have the $10,000 available buying the used lens is the best option. But do keep in mind that the 1-year CD is as close to a sure thing as you can get from an investment. The lens on the other hand is quite a bit more risky. If the lens depreciates as much as 8% over the year of use for whatever reason, then renting breaks even on cost. I've noticed Canon used lens prices have not held up as well lately as they used to, so this is not a small risk we are talking about.

And of course.....if you don't have the $10,000 then this is moot. I'm not even going to bother comparing rental costs vs. charging the lens on a credit card.

I used Lens Rental and have found them to be both extremely helpful and easy to rent from. I do agree with Tom that either they charge too much or in my opinion need to comp more days for a rental period.

It's very easy to pack a lens back up and drop it off at FedEx but getting the item has really become somewhat of a pain in that you almost need to book it for two day in advance of needing it. Not sure what FedEx's problem has been but it never seems to arrive early enough to get familiar with it the day before use, plus you need to sign for it blocking your schedule and should you mis the delivery you won't have it for a shoot the following day. I've experience this a few times, but again not a Lens Rental comment as much as a simple logistical one shipping items, sure does seem like shipping companies have become the equivalent to the old cable repairman joke.

I personally think it's a great idea to rent a lens or a piece of equipment to test in real world use wether you like it, wether it suits your style of shooting, wether it fits in your camera bag so to say.

Sure if you know there is one particular lens it's worth buying but the obvious downside is maybe a different variety of lens works better for one use, say a 300 f2.8 whereas another time the 100-400 would be nicer to use. And of course if photographers were not locked so heavily into a specific camera system that might put pressure on some camera companies to produce cameras buyers want, not forcing photographers into the models they want to sell.