“Whenever I am talking to photographers and mention “”online lens rental”” or “”camera rental by mail,”” most look at me with blank faces, while a few knowingly smile. Being an owner of an online camera lens rental store has been an unexpected adventure in educating people.
When we first started the company we thought the biggest challenge would be to convince people to rent lenses from us and have their lens rental sent to them by mail. However, we neglected to recognize the preliminary first step to that goal and that was to educate that online camera lens rentals actually exist.
To most people the camera or camera lens rental experience traditionally began and ended with a trip to their local camera store. They would drive over, chat with the (usually unfriendly) camera rental associate and then drive home. By the way, can somebody e-mail and tell me why most camera stores employees you meet are so grumpy? It seems like whenever you come up to them to ask a question and you confuse a 1.4 aperture lens with a 1.8 one, they start feeling like it’s no longer worth their time to talk to you? But I digress…
In any case, as I was mentioning before, it looks like most photographers have not realized that online camera lens rentals are possible. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since before Netflix hit the scene, borrowing movies through mail was unthinkable or before BagBorrowSteal.com opened, you couldn’t dream of getting a $1000 bag through the mail (unless you buy it, of course).
The lens rental process is quite straightforward: you simply log onto the website, select the lenses or cameras you want to rent (most places primarily do nikon or canon lens rentals), put in your delivery address and the camera equipment you rented shows up at your door a few days later. Inside is a prepaid stamp that you post over the original and drop it off with your carrier. Beats driving across town and dealing with the grumpy camera store dude, doesn’t it?
Happy Lens Rentals!”
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