6 Reasons To Consider Renting Photo Gear

6 Reasons To Consider Renting Photo Gear

There are several instances where renting gear should be a no-brainer , and yet many photographers are reluctant to do so. Perhaps it’s because they think that buying a Canon 5D Mark III will help them shoot better and win more business. But the reality is that gear is rarely what makes a photographer successful. It’s more about being prepared – and renting often plays a role in your preparation for a shoot.

To learn more about reasons to rent, we turned to the experts at LensProToGo. True, the folks at LensProToGo make their business from renting gear. But they’re all professional shooters, too, and would rather steer you in the right direction than sell you something you don’t need.

Check out the video recording of our live webinar with Brian Tetrault, photographer and staff at LensProToGo. He discusses how to know when to rent vs. buy photo gear.

As a sneak peak, here are the 6 reasons – outlined in the above video – to consider renting:

  • You’re just starting out and want to step up from the kit lenses
  • If you have a really important shoot and you need backup gear
  • Your gear is broken, out for repair, and you have shoots while it’s gone
  • You don’t want to invest in a very expensive piece of gear
  • You need some extra lighting
  • You want to expand your horizons – for example, experiment with video gear
  • You want your second shooter to have better gear
  • Try before you buy!

Brian also shared a really useful table that includes some of the most popular rental gear, and how many times you would need to rent it before you reached its 2-year depreciation value.

2013-08-14_0933

*Based on retail pricing from B&H Photo Video in NYC, no tax

**Based on 4 day pricing from LensProToGo including roundtrip shipping, no tax or protection plan

 

On top of that, LensProToGo is offering a special discount! Use the promo code RENTVSBUY at checkout and receive 10% off of any size order. Offer expires August 30, 2013.

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There are 4 comments for this article
  1. Pingback: 6 Reasons To Consider Renting Photo Gear • LensProToGo Labs
  2. Cory at 11:56 pm

    The math in the chart is incorrect. It is not steering you in the right direction. The correct value to compare to the renting price is the 10 or 30% which is the depreciation, not the 90 or 70% that is the residual value.

    For instance, buying a $2299 lens that you sell for $2069 after two years has cost you $230 to use for those two years…plus any selling fees and the possible lost growth you might have had by otherwise investing that money. To be generous on the value of the possible investment growth, let’s call that $600 instead of $230. At $95/rental, that’s a mere 6 rentals – not even a third of the noted 22 rentals.

    • Allen Murabayashi at 9:07 pm

      I’ll buy your premise, but not your rate of depreciation. You really think you can sell a lens after two years of use and recover 89% of the purchase price?

      • Cory at 11:18 am

        Well I was just going with the values in the chart, making me somewhat hypocritical. However, a quick look at the popular NYC shops shows that lens is actually currently $1800 new, and sold listings on ebay are $1500-$1675. So that’s in the ball park. And I would expect those used prices will probably be reasonably constant, regardless of even a few more years.

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