Lens Rentals

[popeshawnpaul]

This is something that I highly recommend for people here that are going out for a photo week or weekend and have a DSLR body.  If you are going to rent for a week, you can rent lenses from www.lensrentals.com and have the lens for a whole week.  The best thing is that if you live in a rural part of the state they ship it.  Apparently they Fedex it to you and it works well from what I hear.  The prices are good, for example a 300mm F2.8L IS is $174 for the whole week.  That's about $35/day.  Well worth it if you want to take some amazing tack sharp images on a vacation or trip.

Your other option is www.glazerscamera.com for rentals.  They rent by the day and they are more expensive.  You also get Sunday free essentially.  If you are going for a weekend and are near Seattle this is a good option.  That same 300mm F2.8L IS is $40/day so it's still reasonable.

I also found another site www.borrowlenses.com but haven't heard anything about them.

I've found that I would have a hard time locked in on one type of telephoto lens.  I need different lenses depending on where and what I'm shooting.  Instead of investing in 10k+ in glass I've rented for the last 3 years and it's worked great.  Additionally, when they come out with a new version and upgraded features I don't have to sell my lens and buy another.  I also can't get out to shoot that often.  If I shot every weekend then it wouldn't make financial sense to do this.  For the guy that goes on 2-3 photo weekend/safaris per year it works great.  It's just an option I thought people would like to consider.  If you have never used a big pro lens they are fun to try and make that Glacier or Yellowstone Park trips unforgetable. 

[jackelope]

thanks pope...good info there. one of my techs is a former pro-photographer and he has recommended the same thing to me at times.

[Antlershed]

Hey Shawn, how far in advance do you usually have to reserve your lenses at Glazers to make sure they are available? They told me on they phone they take reservations a year in advance.

[javman]

If you rent from Glazers, be prepared to have a credit card with available funds matching the cost of the lens... They'll place a hold on the funds until you return the lens. So if you rent a $5K lens, you need a card with $5K available. Kinda sucks. Not sure about the other ones tho.

[Antlershed]

I just ended up reserving a $1700 lens for this weekend. I have to have $1k available for a deposit when I go in. Not sure if I am going to rent it still or not.

[popeshawnpaul]

That is the problem I run into with Glazers.  In their defense, I will say that they don't actually run my credit card but they put a charge on hold.  It is then removed sort of.  It doens't come through my bank statement.

Last time I rented I didn't want to deal with this issue and I rented from Lensrentals.com.  The transaction was flawless and I didn't have to put down a deposit.  The customer service was amazing.  At this point I would recommend going that route instead of Glazers.  The last couple lenses I got from Glazers were really used hard.  One was sharp, but the other wasn't sharp at all.  It was almost unuseable it was so soft and I barely was able to process one of these images.  Make sure you check out what you are getting from them.  From the online place, they can have the lens to you in a couple days no problem.  Try that route...

[Antlershed]

Thanks for the info. I think I will try lensrentals.com next time. Neither place has the lens available right now that I wanted to test out though (Nikon 300mm f/2.8 VR).