Rent Glass
I predict I’m going to spend a lot of money with these folks: RentGlass.com. I shoot with Canon, and I’ve currently got a 50mm f1.8, the 18-55mm Digital Rebel/300D kit lens, and a 75-300mm f4.0-5.6. I love each and every one of these lenses, but there’s room in my heart for more. 
In response to a question from Lisa in the comments, I checked on some numbers to see what the breakeven point would be for renting vs buying.
In truth, I think it’s a bit more complicated than pure numbers, though. My main reasons for renting would be to either try out a lens if I’m really not sure how useful it will be, or to rent a really expensive lens for a week or three that I can’t justify paying for outright. If I can’t scrape up $3000 for a piece of glass, but my monthly allowance means I can rent it for one week out of every month, then it might be worth it to me to rent it every other month, even knowing I’ll pay more in the long run. I don’t often go in for such short-term thinking, but then I don’t often have to try to justify a $3000 lens purchase to my wife, either.
Anyway, I picked the first lens on the page, a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. It’s $674.95 right now to buy one from Amazon, or $32 to rent it for a week, or $69 to rent it for three weeks. It’s also a type of lens I don’t have, so I might want to test it out. I also picked a more espensive lens, the Canon EF 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM, which is currently $1198.94 at Amazon. I’ve never used an image-stabilized lens before, so again, this is something I might want to test, but would be unlikely to buy. It rents for $40 for one week, or $89 for three weeks.
While Amazon ships for free, the rentals involve shipping costs, about $22 for the round trip to my zipcode.
So we’re talking about $180 for three weeks, or $1873.89 to buy both lenses. I guess I could rent both lens ten times, a total of 30 weeks, and still be money-ahead, but just barely. Of course, as with all rentals, there is risk. If I break the lens, I’ve paid to rent it and then I suppose I must pay to buy it as well, and that would hurt.
April 7th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I see they’re opening a Nikon store soon! What’s the break-even point, Phillip - in other words, how much do you have to rent before it makes better sense to buy your own lens?
April 7th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Good question, and I don’t know. I’ll run some numbers and update the article.
April 7th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Thanks for that, Phillip! It’s certainly an interesting concept, to be sure. We’re in the (eventual) market for a lens for our camera and it would probably be nice to actually check one out before we plopped down the cash (that we don’t have yet).