Highest Standards
Our business really has only three parts: the equipment you want, how we get it to you, and the website you use to interact with us.
Item Quality
We want to get you the nicest stuff you’ve ever rented.
To that end, all our gear is inspected when it comes in and when it goes back out. For lenses, we check the condition of the optics for function and sharpness , the focus system, the aperture, the active stabilization mechanism (if any), and so on. If something fails our quality checks, we send it out for repair, and that’s that.
We’ve found that shipping can push equipment past its design limits, regardless of packaging. (We have more lenses than anyone in the mail order rental industry, and have done a lot of experimentation with packing techniques.) There’s no way around it; things occasionally break in shipping. This is unacceptable to us, but unfortunately, inevitable.
One assumption we hear people make is that ‘rental equipment must be beat up’. And to be honest we know a lot of rental houses buy older, used equipment to hold their costs down. We find that completely unacceptable – we want to shoot with nice equipment and know you do too. And we go to great lengths to make that happen:
- We regularly send lenses in for cleaning and recalibration from the manufacturers. They disassemble the lens, clean each of the elements individually, then re-assemble the whole thing, including anything that might have started to wiggle loose. It costs us to do this— both for the cleaning and because we can’t rent it while it’s being serviced— but it reduces the number of customers that open a box to find a lens that doesn’t autofocus.
- We buy 95% of our equipment new, and the few things we buy used are less than 1 year old when we purchase them.
- We sell equipment when it has been rented for 1 year (less in the case of camera bodies and some specialty lenses). Beginning in 2009 the receipt you get with your lens will include its In Service date with us and manufacturing date when available. We’re proud of how we keep our equipment new.
Unlike some other rental companies, we own all of the equipment we rent. We have no consignment program, meaning we’re free to pull a copy out of circulation, sell it, and replace it at retail whenever we like. Cycling all our equipment periodically is the only way to ensure excellent quality across the board, and it simply wouldn’t be possible if we were renting other people’s stuff.
Shipping Quality
Some other companies ship FedEx Ground, or the US Postal Service, or UPS. We choose FedEx Express. Why? Simply put, the others aren’t up to LensRentals.com standards.
- FedEx Ground is cheaper than FedEx Express, but costs too much in other ways. Irregular delivery schedules and long transit times to the coasts (even though we’re right in the middle) make it unacceptable for us. Beyond that, some people are 50 miles or more away from their local FedEx Ground hub, making it impossible to get their item same-day if they miss the delivery.
- USPS has the same unpredictable delivery schedules and similar transit times as FedEx Ground, albeit with convenient local coverage. Unfortunately, delivery time is unpredictable and there is not tracking of packages. In some cases, this trade-off is fine (especially to Alaska or Hawaii, where USPS is better than the alternatives), but for most renters, it’s not the best choice.
- UPS is competitive with FedEx Express in most of the ways that matter, but being located where we are we can get faster and more reliable service with FedEx.
FedEx Express costs more, but it’s simply better service.
Website Quality
As part of our general policy of getting things right, we’ve worked hard to build the best web presence we can. We have a few specific goals:
- Ease of ordering. We wanted to make it as convenient as possible. As a start, we show you only what’s relevant— Canon, Nikon, or Sony, we’ll give you listings specific to your camera system. From there, we thought the least we can do is to show you what’s out of stock and when you can order it next at a glance, and to make it obvious how much everything is going to cost.
- Follow-through. Placing an order is only the beginning. Plans change, and your order can too; you can cancel reservations yourself right from the website. Otherwise, we’ve got the most comprehensive order tracking system you can imagine: tracking numbers, signatures, serial numbers, return dates, it’s all inside.
- Speed. Function is foremost, but it’s the little things that make the difference, speed being one of them. We wanted to make LensRentals.com the fastest site you’ve ever been to, and think we’ve gotten pretty close.