About Photographic Equipment Rentals

Video Transcript

"Hello, this is Anthony. Today, we're going to talk about renting photographic equipment. The one thing about renting equipment that is an excellent opportunity for any photographer, being a professional or an amateur or someone just getting into it, is that you don't have to purchase the equipment you're renting. We all know that photography equipment is pretty expensive. So by renting it, you get a chance to see if you even like this equipment. Do you like this camera? And, you know, I give...I try to tip my students off to renting something before they buy it. So, in some ways, that's actually going to...going to work for you. When you have to rent a camera for a job -- let's say, you are a professional photographer or someone just starting out in the photography market -- you want to make sure that you call the camera store to make sure they have your piece of equipment. Most camera stores have a website where they list the equipment they have, and then they list the rate for that equipment. And usually, the day rate can be anywhere from 20 dollars upwards to 500, maybe even 1,000 dollars for a high-end piece of equipment. The biggest part about renting something that is really detrimental to it is that you have to put down a deposit. Now, no camera store owner, in his right mind or her right mind, is going to let you walk out of their camera store with a 5,000 dollar camera without a credit card or a pretty large deposit. So I know when I first started out, I wanted to make sure that I had that much money on my credit card because they might charge you for that camera. They might charge a few thousand dollars, and then you'll get that back on your credit card. Now, if you're working on a budget, this is something that you really have to take seriously because when you leave that camera store, if you had that money on your credit card, you might not have it when you leave, and that is a mistake I've personally made and I've seen some other professionals make."