Lensrentals Rocks

I mentioned that I "ordered" the big honker D800E and 35mm ƒ/1.4 from Lensrentals.com last night—due here on Wednesday for a five-day stay.

But in case you're not aware, Lensrentals.com is simply one of the best photography sites on the Internet—even if you never rent anything. Take a look at this recent post as an example—just fascinating, and it is information you will get nowhere else. At least nowhere else that I know of. As a former photo magazine editor, I can attest that the lack of this very class of information was always one of the real headaches of creating accurate and factual equipment reviews—even the biggest magazines didn't order multiple copies of every piece of equipment under test to take sample variation into account.

Highly recommended for your bookmarks.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rob L: "I love Lensrentals—but admittedly, I'm more spoiled than most, as I live less than five minutes from their door. Funny how renting, or just pricing a rental, of a new 'must have' camera or lens can make you reevaluate it's purchase. If you find the rental price is too much, then you likely aren't that serious about it the first place. They've cured me of my NEX fixation, justified my choice to get a then-new D7000 vs. a refurbed D90, and knowing I could always rent that tilt-shift 24mm(that I've never rented) instead of buying it makes my marriage happier."

MM: "Another great thing about the lensrentals.com blog (besides Roger's entertaining writing) is that they provide unparallelled looks at what is often the most important aspect of 'lens performance': not sharpness, but how well the lens holds up. This page on various lenses' repair data from January to July, 2012 is pretty interesting, for example, and they do a lot a lot of teardowns of expensive lenses that you won't find anywhere else (maybe it's geeky, but I found the dissection of the $2300 Canon 24–70mm II weirdly fascinating)."

Comments

[Sylvain G.]

Absolutely,

These kind of articles and, if I may add, his yearly reports (for instance : http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/01/lens-repair-data-2011 ) are truly wonderful & unique sources of information.

We can't promote LR site enough. In fact, if we promoted it enough, perhaps Lens manufacturers would notice.

-Sylvain

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Yeah, I've found multiple really valuable articles on their site. They get to see things from a different perspective, handling many multiple instances of a lot of the gear. And it's a VERY important perspective.

[Nikhil Ramkarran]

Plus, in addition to all the numbers, Roger Cicala is one of the more informative and humorous writers writing on photography. I was quite distressed when I discovered how quickly I was burning through his archive :)

[Steve]

Just remember to smile a lot when using it. I have had a D800E since June. It is at the same time the most amazing and challenging camera that I have owned. Just yesterday I found the metering switch half way between spot and matrix???

I look forward to your comments and experiences.

[John King]

I'm glad to have competent reviews of equipment and I'm very glad to have what Roger does at Lens Rentals. I'd call his work "Research".

I hope your test run with the D800E goes well.

[Cateto/Jose]

So you mean that you didn't try a loan from Nikon itself, provided it will most probably mean big promotion for the D800E? Or do you avoid loans from manufacturers by principle?

[Mel]

I've rented and bought from Lensrentals (one of the few suppliers of Olympus equipment) and they do indeed ROCK! Great group to work with if you want to try out new brands or simply see what the world looks like through a different lens. Highly recommend.

[Peter]

"For the purists who are going to point out the real name is the Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 XOIS, I think we’ve reached the point where we can assume any product remotely connected with photography has an X in its name somewhere. Maybe if we all quit mentioning that letter, they’ll stop using it. Twenty years from now, young photographers will make fun of us old-timers by saying things like “you’re still shooting with X equipment, aren’t you?” A century from now they’ll describe the timeline of photography as the wet plate era, the film era, the digital era, and the X era."

Oh god, that's priceless, PRICELESS!

[Mark Walker]

Dear Mike, just by coincidence we had a return D800e (from a customer who saw variance in focus after setting the micro adjustment on his 85 1.4 - I digress), and I happened to pop on the 35 1.4. I was simply blown away with some of the random snaps I took at full aperture of my colleagues and a Scotch Terrier outside (more photogenic) and nearly ran out the shop with a few months worth of wages in my hands - a reaction I don't often have*.
I hope you are as delighted (just watch front/back focus possible 'issues')
Kind regards, Mark Walker

*Nearly ran off with an OMD and 75mm f1.8 the other day - and I don't ordinarily go for telephotos.