To rent a lens it doesn’t matter if you are a pro or take pictures as a hobby or are going on a vacation. Renting the perfect camera lens for more than likely less than $100 for a week, what better way to get the pictures that you really want. Instead of spending $300 – $1,500 on buying the lens outright, why not rent and try them out? Think of it as test driving a car that you are thinking about purchasing.
Throughout the past couple of months I’ve been thinking about renting a lens, but I didn’t really know where to start. I mean, yeah, I can do some searching around online and see what places are out there. But how would I know who is good? Who has good prices? Who over charges for shipping? I never came across any place that had a list of a few of the websites in one place. (If there’s one out there, do tell!) This is where I started my “research” and wanted to share it with any others interested in photography..
To start things off, I went through all of the websites to find the same lens to compare the prices. Well, to say the least, that was a major failure. The three lens are quite close in mm and price. I will note for each website which lens it is.
– www.borrowlenses.com — Located in San Mateo, CA
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $25, Shipping is $19 for 2-Day, Local pick-up is available
Reservations can be made
– www.lensprotogo.com — Located in Acton, MA
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $55, Shipping is included
Reservations can be made up to 4 months in advance
– www.rentglass.com –Located in Kissimmee, FL
Canon EF-S 60mm f2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $21, Shipping is $13 for 1-3 Days; Local pick-up is available
Rental is based on a first come, first serve basis; Can rent 3 lenses at a time
*Side note: I e-mailed customer service about picking up a lens and got a response less than 30 minutes later. Great service!
– www.photolensrental.com — Located in San Rafael, CA
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $35, Shipping is $39.45
Lenses are on a first come, first serve basis; one lens at a time
– www.lensrental.com — Located in Cordova, TN
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8
1 week rental is $35, Shipping is $26 for 2-Day, Local pick-up is available
Reservations available
Guaranteed availability, given two weeks notice on a two-week rental
*Thanks to Will Glynn at lensrentals.com for additional information.
– www.adoramarentals.com — Located in New York, NY
Canon 60mm f/2.8 Compact Macro E-FS
1 week rental is $60/week, or $20/day
*Side note: Days in transit are included in the rental period
– www.rentmylenses.com — Located in Camden, AR
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
1 week rental is $29, Shipping is $24.40
Reservations are available, See website for a “two-in-two guarantee”
– www.lensgiant.com — Located in Northville, MI
Canon 100mm EF f/2.8 Macro
8 day rental is $23, Shipping ground is free or 2-Day express is $10.37
Reservations are available
– www.prophotorental.com — Located in Denver, CO
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
7 day rental is $44.80 (at $6.40/day), 3-Day shipping is free, can upgrade to 2-day or overnight, Local pickup available
Reservations are available
4-day minimum, based on a day rate
– www.ziplens.com — Located in Brookline, MA
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM
1 week rental is $35, Shipping is $23 for 2-Day and $35 for Overnight, Local pickup available in Boston area
Reservations are available up to 3 months in advance
Gift certificates available
– www.cameralensrental.com — Located in Anderson, IN
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $25, Shipping is $24.99 for Fed-Ex
Use code CLR and get 10% off your first order
Reservations can be made as far in advance as you want
Rent 4 lenses (doesn’t have to be at once) for a week or longer and get a 3-day rental for free, just pay the shipping and if needed longer, the difference in the rental period
*Side note: E-mailed for an “incomplete order in the database” by two different employees, within a hour of each other, both of them happened on a Sunday. Great customer e-mail service.
– www.mjlensrentals.com — Located in Wichita, KS
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
1 week rental is $56, Shipping is $31.62 USPS Priority Mail (2-3 days)
Rent as many as you want, may require a copy of your drivers license and/or security deposit
Not many different lenses available
I hope this information helps. I found it useful to gather all the information on a similiar type of lens from lots of different websites and then go from there. If you know of any lens rental sites/places that I didn’t mention please e-mail me at kelly@peglegpug.com and I will be sure to add them to any upcoming lists.
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First, I work with LensRentals.com. (Some of the players in this industry don’t identify themselves when promoting their own company, so I thought I’d be clear.) Second, we carry all three of these lenses:
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $35, shipping is $26 for 2-day (round-trip)
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro
1 week rental is $35, shipping is $26 for 2-day (round-trip)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L
1 week rental is $69, shipping is $26 for 2-day (round-trip)
Reservations on all rentals
Optional damage insurance
Local pickup
Guaranteed availability, given two weeks notice on a two-week rental
That said, it’s not really fair to compare these three lenses. The 60mm Macro costs $400, the 100mm Macro can be had for slightly less than that, while the 50mm f/1.2L retails at $1400.
I understand that the cost is different, which is why I stated $300-$1500. I was looking to rent the 60mm and I may have overlooked it on some sites, but I didn’t come across it on all of them. It wasn’t a fact of if everyone had all 3 lenses, because most of them do, but since the 60mm is what I ended up renting, that was what I went with if the site had it. And thank you for the rest of the information, I will include it with the rest.
Hi Kelly-
Jared from Pro Photo Rental here.
Nice round up!
There are some other players in the game, but you’ve caught the major ones.
There are a couple blogs out there that aggregate a list of the online rental shops (photodoto.com and digital-photography-school.com come to mind), but some of the posts are aging a bit now and don’t include all of the current places. Thank you for pulling them all together for your readers. I’m certain they’ll find value in it.
If you ever have questions about us or want to try something out, please shoot me an e-mail or give us a call. I’d be happy to help you or your readers out!
Best regards,
Jared
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