Most Rented New Photo & Video Products of 2021

We have a habit at the end of the year here at Lenrentals.com. Each year, we compile all of our end-of-the-year data and share with you the best-rented products for the year. Being among the largest rental houses in the world, we really think that this information can be a great tool to measure industry metrics and see where both the video and photography markets are trending for the upcoming years. Last year’s list was a bit of an anomaly, with many events being postponed given the global pandemic. However, 2021 marked some return to normalcy, where the industry was able to rebuild some of the momenta it had built from previous years.

So without further delay, let’s look at the most popular new releases for 2021 —

Looking at the information for face value, you can see that 2021 new products were very much video-focused, and the industry seemed to really respond to that with rentals. At the top of the list, and by a pretty wide margin, was the Canon C70 Cinema Camera (RF), and is most notably impressive because it really further solidifies the industry’s response to Canon’s RF lens mount. As something I’ve touched on recently on this blog, the RF mount is the future for Canon’s platform, and they’ve really put a lot of resources into it to develop it to the level that the EF mount has been developed.

Additionally, the highest rented camera that wasn’t designed exclusively for video productions was the Sony a1 – which shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve seen the camera’s spec sheet. At 50mp, and 30fps shooting speeds, the Sony a1 is truly a flagship of a camera, and an impressive response to the Canon R5 released in 2020. Rounding out the rest of the stills cameras were the Nikon Z7 II, which is Nikon’s current flagship (with the Nikon Z9 coming very very soon), the Leica Q2 Monochrom, and my personal favorite, the Fujifilm GFX 100s. Backtracking a bit, it’s really impressive to see the Leica Q2 Monochrom doing so well, being that it is such a niche camera. Shooting only in black and white and with a price tag higher than any of the other stills cameras on this list, seeing such a niche camera on this list was certainly a surprise for me. 

Last year, with many of the releases delayed, we decided to display the data a little differently, and broke down each release into subcategories – so let’s look at last year’s data to see if we can find any trends in the market.

Comparing last year’s numbers to this year, one thing is obvious – the RF lens mount continues to grow in its market share as more people trade in their DSLRs and move to the Canon mirrorless platform. Additionally, it seems that the professional video market has really taken over from previous years, with much of the list for 2021 being in the professional video camera department. As professional video cameras become more affordable, will we expect to see less budget-friendly cameras like the Panasonic GH5, and more systems like the Canon C70? I guess only time will tell.

In previous years, along with posting the new product data, we’ve gone over our staff picks for favorites – but we decided to bundle that information into podcast episodes this year. So this Thursday, you can listen in to Lensrentals.com’s Ryan Hill, Ally Aycock Patterson, and LensProToGo Video Producer Dom Boisvert discuss their favorite video products from the past year, followed by the next episode, where Ryan Hill, Joey Miller, and Zach Sutton talk about the biggest successes in the photography industry for 2021.

Tune in next week, when we’ll do a deeper dive into all the rentals from 2021 – not just new products. We’ll look through the data, and find which systems are growing in market share, and which ones are shrinking, as we look forward to 2022.