didnt know where to post this - renting equipment from forum members?

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Muler

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Im sure ive seen people do this in the past, wondering if its allowed, and if so, can anyone rent out a 2.8 tele or something similar? :D.

(y)
 
I don't think there's ever been any sort of formal renting facility. Now and again people have loaned equipment to others but it's strictly a personal arrangement, nothing to do with TPF :)
 
Calumet, as far as I know, are the only formal hirers. They have just started advertsiing on my site, follow the ad from the photographers page if interested.
 
Called into Calumet today enquiring about hiring some studio lights :help: and wanting to hire them before I buy them.

So the salesman came over explained how they worked :thinking: and for my project would be perfect for my needs.

Then he tells me the buy price which was £700 approx, which I thought was not too bad, but he said we hire them too. If you get them on a Friday you keep them all weekend for just the cost of a days rental. Cool I thought. (y) £41 all weekend.

Now I'm thinking I could nip off to Madrid with a couple of floozies sorry models and be back with some super piccys to sell to the tabloids, all for bargain prices.

Here is the small print.........

You need to leave a deposit.......... 'no probs' I said.

'A weeks rental?' said I.

Slight pause in proceedings.

'Sorry Sir but we require that you cover the full cost of the kit plus the cost of rental' the now, two sales persons gleamed.


I replied 'When I hire a car I don't leave a deposit of £13000 for a Ford Focus, why are you asking for so much?'

'Policy Sir' in unison they cheered.

So I reckon I can buy the kit,from somewhere else sell it & still be in profit against hiring one from Callumet.

Surely this a high cost of rental. I know you get your money back if the item is returned OK but the initial outlay seemed excessive.

Am I right or wrong. Don't they have insurance? I bet they do.

http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/BW4305UK/

Sorry for the long post but it bugged me a little nay a lot.
 
The deposit sounds very excessive and somewhat prohibitive to me. Might be worth checking out what their Head Office has to say. A deposit usually bridges the gap on an insurance excess, in the example of the car hire given above you might expect to leave a deposit of a couple of hundred pounds against damage they couldn't claim for on insurance (excess) so why they are asking for a deposit to the full value of the goods hired suggests they cannot get insurance any more?:thinking:
 
I guess camera gear is easier, and possibly more attractive, to 'forget to return' and to sell on ... :cautious: ... although not having hired from Calumet I don't know what security checks they carry out ... :shrug: ... by taking the full value they avoid attracting 'customers' of dubious persuasion who might consider the naughty side and only attract those serious about hiring ... and returning ... their equipment ... :D

Although why they don't instruct their staff to explain more fully, in true customer friendly fashion, I cannot explain rather than just say "Policy, sir ! ... :D" ... :D


I was recently considering trying out a Nikkor 600mm ... :thinking: ... only £6K, give or take, deposit ... :eek:

:p
 
I've seen this on lens hire too, they need you to cover the cost of the lens in full when hiring, it is actually standard practice in this type of hire. I suppose it's something to do with the fact that it's a lot easier to 'lose' a lens than a car.
 
Why can't they just take a credit card from you and provisionally "reserve" the amount against the card, like online shops do when you place an order? The reservation ensures that sufficient funds are available and can't be subsequently used by anyone else but isn't actually counted as an expense on your account until they finalise the payment. They can then simply cancel the "reservation" when you return the kit, or indeed complete it should you abscond.
 
Indeed they (Calumet) do take credit card deposits. What if I do not have a credit card. Not all the people in this once great country own DEBT, ahem, credit cards. Its another way of things costing more than they should.

Sorry if I am getting on a soapbox but I hate being ripped off.

Oh and one more thing, the rented studio kit lights were not brand new so why was I being asked full sale price of a new kit. Again it stinks of profiteering.
 
Their kit, their rules!

I thought all camera equipment rental companies take full value deposits when renting. As long as you take the kit back in the same condition it left in, I don't see what the problem is
 
don't forget - it is only a deposit - you do get it back - assuming you return the kit, that is! :naughty:
 
but a lot of people do not have the means of affording the deposit. I could find £40 for a day/weekend but there is no way i could afford a deposit of even £500 let alone £3000. Granted they want to cover themselves and there is no issue but it does narrow their clientel somewhat
 
I was tempted to hire a 70-200mm for some indoor work a couple of months ago, found their website and saw the rental price, "hmm not too bad". Then I saw the deposit...

Now not having a credit card and being a student there is no way I would ever be able to come up with that sort of money! If I could I would buy the lens...

I can see why they do it but still.. :(
 
Ross said:
Their kit, their rules!

I thought all camera equipment rental companies take full value deposits when renting. As long as you take the kit back in the same condition it left in, I don't see what the problem is
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True, but the point is having a rule like that remove a lot of potential customers. Unless it happens so often, to a point now its how they make money? They must have insurance, so in the case of it getting lost, they would get double their amount from it.

last year I thought about hiring a 30D out, but then realise this policy and figure i can buy a 30D, use it and if i didn't want it afterwards i can sell it, even had £100 cashback at the time so I would actually make money from it. In the end i kept the camera, but that policy lost them a sale.
 
mattyh said:
Anyone else see a small gap in the uk market ;)
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Yes.

I've been working on this for a little while and I hope to open a UK-based lens rental business soon.

The UK market is certainly deficient. There is of course Calumet, and 3 other smaller operators that I have been able to identify, but they all share the following characteristics:
- Deposits for full replacement costs are required.
- Compulsory insurance surcharge.
- Equipment must usually be collected from and returned to a retail location.
- If delivery is available, no prices are quoted.
- No provision for Internet booking.
- No provision of stock availability via the Internet.
- The ability to reserve equipment in advance is probably available, but not advertised.
- High prices!

For example, renting a Canon 135mm f/2 L from Calumet would cost £162 for a week, once you've added insurance and VAT to the prices they quote. That's about 25% of the cost of the lens when new.

In the USA, there are at least seven lens rental outfits which have a different business model:
- BorrowLenses.com, based in California
- GlassAndGear.com, based in New Hampshire
- LensesToRent.com, based in Ohio
- LensProToGo.com, based in Massachusetts
- LensRentals.com, based in Tennessee
- RentGlass.com, based in Florida
- ZipLens.com, also based in Massachusetts

Their business model is what I plan to emulate. In simple terms this would entail:
- book and pay for lenses via the Internet;
- lenses delivered and collected by mail or courier (though local pick-up would of course be possible);
- transparent pricing;
- no deposit;
- fair prices.

For that Canon 135mm f/2 L, I would expect to be able to offer a week's rental for around £30-35, maybe even less.

And did I say no deposit?

I've had a lot of help and advice from Mark and Max, who run BorrowLenses.com, and from Roger who runs LensRentals.com. But there are a huge number of details that have to be sorted - web site, insurance, VAT registration, contracts, banking facilities, security, etc. etc. And raising the money is more than a bit scary too. This is a business that could eat through huge piles of cash.

So ... hang in there, folks. I'm working on it as fast as the day job allows.

Meanwhile, of course I'd be very happy to hear from UK photographers about what they'd like to see from the business.
 
Nearly all companies that offer photo gear rental in the UK have always taken the full value of items as a deposit from individuals or companies without an account.

The rental business is aimed at studios/companies that have a very wide range of kit needs and prefer to rent as needed to buying all and everything. If you set up an account (which is not that easy as you'll need to have been trading for a while and provide bank and trade references) then the deposit isn't required.

None of this helps the person that just wants to hire in a lens or some lights once in a while but that's not the core business to the likes of calumet. To give an idea of the scale of business they look at, I spent over £20k on one order when I was setting up and I'm still very very small fry to them.
 
dazzajl said:
The rental business is aimed at studios/companies that have a very wide range of kit needs and prefer to rent as needed to buying all and everything. If you set up an account (which is not that easy as you'll need to have been trading for a while and provide bank and trade references) then the deposit isn't required.

None of this helps the person that just wants to hire in a lens or some lights once in a while but that's not the core business to the likes of calumet. To give an idea of the scale of business they look at, I spent over £20k on one order when I was setting up and I'm still very very small fry to them.
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Absolutely. Calumet and the like simply aren't set up to cater to individuals.
 
The Pro Centre in London:

http://www.procentre.co.uk/terms_conditions.htm

These people also asks for a deposit of the full value of the equipment.

They do make allowances for account holders, though how long it would take to build up sufficient 'credit' to becoma an account holder is unknown.

Speaking personally, if I owned such a business, and was hiring out a £3K lens to someone I'd never met before, damned right I'd want the value of the lens in my account, before I'd let a complete stranger wander off with it. Leaving a credit card number wouldn't work, as I'd have absolutely no idea whethger the card holders account held £5 or £5k.

The 'insurance' angle doesn't wash at all either. No insurance company in their right mind would offer insurance for such a venture - the risks are too high, and in any case, paying for such an all risks policy would be prohibitive!
 
StewartR - sounds great. Just for info, I would have no issue with a deposit if it was what I considered reasonable - i.e. something like the amount to cover the insurance excess. I certainly would not see an issue paying a £50-£100 deposit on a £1k lens.

Really hope it works out for you - I would almost certainly rent from you for those special days out.
 
dougdarter said:
Speaking personally, if I owned such a business, and was hiring out a £3K lens to someone I'd never met before, damned right I'd want the value of the lens in my account, before I'd let a complete stranger wander off with it. Leaving a credit card number wouldn't work, as I'd have absolutely no idea whethger the card holders account held £5 or £5k.
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I can sympathise, Doug. But - when you charge the deposit to the credit card, the bank takes a commission on the transaction - say 2% if you've got a reasonable bank. Then when you refund the deposit, the bank takes their commission on that transaction too - that's another 2%. So you've paid 4% of the value of the lens to the bank, before you've earned a penny from the customer.

That business model leads inexorably to the high prices we see from Calumet and the like. I'm convinced there is demand for a fairly priced service aimed at individuals like you and me - and the guys in the US have proved that, at least over there - but not charging a deposit is absolutely fundamental to being able to do it.

I did say it was scary, didn't I?

PS Doug's link to the Pro Centre doesn't work. Here is the page he meant to link to.
 
StewartR said:
I can sympathise, Doug. But - when you charge the deposit to the credit card, the bank takes a commission on the transaction - say 2% if you've got a reasonable bank. Then when you refund the deposit, the bank takes their commission on that transaction too - that's another 2%. So you've paid 4% of the value of the lens to the bank, before you've earned a penny from the customer.

That business model leads inexorably to the high prices we see from Calumet and the like. I'm convinced there is demand for a fairly priced service aimed at individuals like you and me - and the guys in the US have proved that, at least over there - but not charging a deposit is absolutely fundamental to being able to do it.

I did say it was scary, didn't I?

PS Doug's link to the Pro Centre doesn't work. Here is the page he meant to link to.
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Stewart,

I wish you every success with youur endeavour, I really do. It would be great if this could happen in UK.

How the heck though, will you find insurance that will cover the hire??

You lose just one lens, and the insurance may cover it, but they won't do it again. Insurance just doesn't work the way we'd like it to. Lose two or three, and I'd doubt any insurance company would take on the risk.

Insurance companies may work differently in the US, I don't know.

Think about damage. Drop a £2k lens, and the chances are, repairs will cost £1k or thereabouts, so not only will you be 1K out of pocket, but the chances are, the lens will be out of commission for a month at least.

Unless you underwrite the cost of insurance yourself, I can't see how you could possibly take the risk.

Good luck.
 
One way I could see it working is as part of a community like this one. People who have been members for a certain period of time could be given the opportunity to invest in a co-operative rental scheme. All the money would go to buying good quality glass and the members would be repaid with rental credits. You could lend outside the group at a higher cost and/or deposit.
 
dougdarter said:
I wish you every success with youur endeavour, I really do. It would be great if this could happen in UK.

...

Unless you underwrite the cost of insurance yourself, I can't see how you could possibly take the risk.
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Thanks for the support, Doug.

I'm not expecting to be able to insure lenses whilst they're out on rent. (This is getting even scarier, isn't it? Mountains of cash, no deposits, no insurance...!)

Obviously renters will be liable for any damage they cause. That ought to focus the mind on being careful. (How often have you dropped a £2k lens?) But, equally obviously, some renters will not pay up; some will claim it was fine when they packed it to send back; and the electronics in some lenses may just stop working. And, no matter howe careful I am with the anti-fraud measures, I guess some lenses will simply not come back. All these losses will have to be self-insured. In principle that's not a problem. I can estimate the frequency with which repairs will be required - the guys in the US have been very helpful providing data here - and allow for that in the pricing and overall financing. In practice ... I'm sure it will be scary.

The further I get into this, the more I see why nobody else is doing it!
 
SW4peter said:
One way I could see it working is as part of a community like this one. People who have been members for a certain period of time could be given the opportunity to invest in a co-operative rental scheme. All the money would go to buying good quality glass and the members would be repaid with rental credits. You could lend outside the group at a higher cost and/or deposit.
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That's an interesting idea, Peter, and I've given it some thought. But I don't think it would be very easy. Can I find 200 or 500 people willing to buy me a £1k lens? Also, if a typical week's rental costs say 5% of the retail price, then each member who buys a lens gets 20 rental credits. Do they want that many? If not, they'll need a mechansim to allow them to get their money out..

I expect a co-operative like that could work. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some like that, on a small scale, here and there. But I don't think that business model would allow me to give up the day job!
 
Sounds like pipe dream, but one that I hope comes through.

I would diffenately be a customer and use a service like that Stewart. My college has this feature but obviously not alot of lenses and too many students to contend with trying to get the same lens (the 600mm).

The college asks for £10 to cover insurance (this is just a fee not a deposit) and we get to take any gear out we need provided it's there.

I guess their security comes from the fact they have peoples addresses and various other information which is all confirmed, that is an important factor, confirmation that what the person is telling you is true, ID checks, address checks, and a signature are a good safeguard that they won't do a runner.

If you did these checks you could have a userbase of these confirmed people, and I imagine if someone wanted to use this service they would be willing to do these checks so they didn't have to pay a deposit. Then just don't rent out anything to anyone who hasn't got something confirmed.

Passports etc can all be sent via post, as long as you are trustworthy to send it back ;)

Very interesting though, keep me up to date.

Colin.
 
Foggy said:
StewartR - sounds great. Just for info, I would have no issue with a deposit if it was what I considered reasonable - i.e. something like the amount to cover the insurance excess. I certainly would not see an issue paying a £50-£100 deposit on a £1k lens.

Really hope it works out for you - I would almost certainly rent from you for those special days out.
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Same here, I wouldn't have any issue paying a smallish deposit (say something like 15% upto £150 for example), it's just the full deposits that I have an issue with.

I would definately take up your service if it ever comes to fruition. Hopefully it will.:)

I'm not sure about sending passports through the post though, wouldn't credit/debit cards have enough details to ensure you know the true address. Maybe something like the paypal model of verification could be an option, a landline phone number and verified bank.

Although all that may put off a lot of the more impulse renters and start joining the Calumet business model.
 
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