Lens rental in the UK.

[Swisstony10]

Rant alert.....

So normally, when I need to rent a particular lens, I go the uber-brilliant Lenses For Hire - the have a fabulous range of quality lenses (more for Canon than for Nikon, because the people who run the company are Canon shooters, and wanted to start with what they knew most about, but they promise customers they're constantly improving Nikon stocks), and because their hire terms are sensible. Here's an example of how they work:

I need a lens for this Friday and Saturday. I'd hire it for three days, Thursday - Saturday (because that's their shortest hire period, but it does mean I have a day to get used to the linear zoom before I use it in anger) - they charge me whatever their rate is for a fully-insured three-day rental and about £8 for delivering it (more if I'm hiring a bunch of lenses, or something particularly big and heavy), and it arrives on Wednesday, so that I have it ready to use on Thursday. On Monday, after I've finished using it for my three hire days, I send it back to them, either using their preferred courier company (cheapest option if I've got big, heavy, or multiple lenses) or the Royal Mail (recorded delivery - costs me about another £8).

Unfortunately, I need a particular lens at short notice - I'm at an air show this weekend, and I could do with taking Canon's lovely 100-400mm L lens out for a spin. Unfortunately, all 30 of the 100-400 L lenses that Lenses For Hire have in stock are booked out. So I've had to do some hunting around.

My first stop - Calumet. They're local to me, have great staff in the shop, and I regularly buy stuff from them. They also have a weekend rental offer - rent from Friday to Monday and only pay for a day's rental. That would make the 100-400 about £35 to cover me for the two days I'll be at the air show. Except that my local branch doesn't hold it in stock - it'll have to be sent down from the London branch, and I'd then have to pay for a minimum 5-day rental, plus delivery costs. That's £144 plus whatever they want to ship it 2 hours down the road. Plus they want £1500 as a deposit (ok, so I get it back, but still)

The only other option I've found is a company called Camerent. They include the shipping time into the rental period - I can rent the lens for three days, but it'll arrive between 9am and 1pm on the first day, and will be collected "between 9am and 6pm" on the third day - thus if I want to be able to use it for three days, I have to hire it for five days. On top of that, they want to charge £35 for delivery, although in an improvement on Calumet they only want a £250 deposit, provided I pay for optional insurance at 15% of the rental cost.

I only really need the lens for Friday afternoon, and Saturday, but I still can't have a three-day rental, becase they don't collect on Sundays, and include that day in their rental period, so I couldn't even run with a three-day rental period and leave home as soon as the lens has arrived.

Camerent claim to be able to beat any other price for lens rental, but when I raised this, they pointed out that their three-day rental rate was cheaper than Lenses for Hire's three-day rate, despite the fact that they charge three times as much for delivery, and despite the fact that their three-day hire period doesn't actually allow me to use the lens for three days (and their 5-day period which would give me three days' use is more expensive than LFH's 3-day period which gives me the same service). Grrrrr! I hate companies that try to treat you like you're some kind of idiot.

I'll carry on using Calumet to buy stuff, but I'd have to be pretty desperate to use them for hire, and I'm not going to be going anywhere near Camerent.

/endrant

Anyone else had any good/bad experiences with any other UK lens rental places?

Russ.

[OsmosisStudios]

Ive only ever rented gear twice, and at that, it was within Canada. If anyone is in Ontario, Henry's has partnered with Headshots rentals (based in Toronto) for rentals. Super cheap and fast.