WHAT PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EQUIPMENT RENTALS
Equipment rental houses can save the day and provide guidance for big decisions.
by Lindsay Thompson
There’s nothing like a good equipment rental house. Walking through rows and rows of cameras, lenses, stands, and light modifiers can be an intoxicating experience for any photographer. While every professional photographer owns some photo equipment, it’s impossible to own everything, so those rental companies can come in handy when you need an exotic lens, extra strobes for a big shoot, or a piece of gear you’d like to try before taking the plunge of buying it.
While some rental houses offer equipment for both stills and motion, most specialize in one or the other. This is due in part to the unique demands of shooting in either medium — still photography may require more strobe lighting, whereas motion necessitates continuous lighting, among other amenities.
Ian Kreidich, along with his wife Kelly Pratt Kreidich, recently completed another edition of an ongoing project called Dancers and Dogs. (Check out our article on the project!) They frequently traveled while shooting the project, and Ian spoke to us about some of their rental experiences on the road.
We really mixed and matched how much we rented versus carried. When shooting in NYC and LA we try to avoid renting a car, so often that means trying to limit how much we have to carry. If a rental studio had Profoto D2 strobes on hand then we would save ourselves the hassle of bringing lights. The same would apply for various pieces of heavy grip: if we could source it locally then we’d be glad to not fly with it.
Not only do these businesses maintain a virtual library of the equipment any photographer could need. They also provide advice on what equipment to use. “[Rental houses] have always been great at suggesting equipment for certain styles of shoots,” says Lauren V. Allen, who specializes in food and travel photography.
Equipment rental houses do much more than just rent out equipment. “Our team wears many hats on any given day,” says Kyle Tait of B3K Digital, in Toronto. “Taking requests, consulting, accounting, shipping (as we do offer rentals via shipping), etc. [constitutes] a normal day.” This work comes on top of the essential daily maintenance of the rental house — confirming orders, checking equipment in and out through the course of the day, and testing to make sure everything is still in good working condition before it goes back out.
At most rental houses, gear can be picked up in the afternoon and returned the morning of the agreed-upon return date. This practice ensures that rentals don’t overlap and maximizes the availability of equipment. B3K offers two different rental options. Equipment can be signed out for a full day, which is noted as 24 hours or over the weekend from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. Rentals can also be week-long, which then (based on equipment) costs the same as either a three- or four-day charge. You can check out their full price list here for a better idea of what equipment rental might cost.
A snapshot of Essanay Studio and Lighting Company’s equipment department, courtesy of their website.
In addition to renting out gear, consulting customers for upcoming shoots has become a substantial part of Kyle’s business:
Mini-consultations make up a good portion of our time, helping photographers or even non-photographers on all sorts of various scenarios. Some are easy, [and] some are extremely challenging, but that’s what makes the whole thing rewarding. It also helps us continue to grow a library of various solutions while building relationships with clients that will last for years.
Another great thing about rental houses is that they’re a reliable resource with which to keep in touch for new-to-you gear. To keep up with the newest products, rental houses cycle through equipment at a steady clip and sell off many of the items they no longer use.
We sell off rental equipment frequently to bring in new products. This does a couple of things: it keeps our inventory current in terms of what’s new and keeps the gear fresh. We like to do this every chance we get but will try to do a large ‘used rentals sale’ a couple of times a year. Purchases happen as we sell gear or new products become available. We’re continually adding to our rental inventory to have the most up-to-date equipment.
Having that up-to-date equipment is vital for keeping customers, and it has effectively brought some people to use rental houses more often than buying equipment. Count Ian and Kelly among those people:
We’ve found ourselves using rental houses more and more often over the years for local jobs. I think we have regretted buying equipment much more than we have ever regretted renting equipment.
One of the most frequently rented pieces of equipment, as mentioned by both Kyle and Ian, is strobe lighting. Kyle referenced a high “cost of entry” along with other factors for why strobes get rented so often.
Depending on the production, a client may need anywhere from 3–12 power packs along with heads. It’s rare to see a client own that level of strobe equipment; it just makes more sense to rent. With that comes grip gear — stands, rollers, scrims, modifiers, etc., as part of the mix.
And, as Kyle mentioned earlier, rental houses will sometimes ship equipment to their customers. While that may seem a bit dicey, an excellent rental house will have their customers’ back if something goes astray like it recently did for Ian.
Our shoot schedules generally don’t allow us any time for finding additional equipment. We did have an instance where a rented Profoto D2 light arrived broken to our home base in St. Louis. We originally planned to fly with it to LA the next day for a shoot. Luckily this rental house was able to overnight a replacement to a FedEx office location near our studio in LA the next day.
Next time you’re looking to rent equipment for a shoot, whether still or motion, consider using Wonderful Machine’s Find Crew page. If you’re a rental house and you’d like to be listed, reach out via email or give us a call at 1 610 260 0200!
