We Are Lensrentals.com Ask Us Anything!

What's the least believable or most unusual explanation you've seen for gear returned with damage?

The bear attack wasn't believable until we saw the pictures of the bear. That's the winner for me. -- Joey

I wasn't anywhere near the beach, I swear. With the return postmark being Miami Beach.

The most common? "It just stopped working" and then the item comes back with a huge dent or filled with seaweed.

The best true one: "Right after I set up, this grizzly attacked and beat the crap out of the camera and tripod". The dude took cell phone video of it. https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/05/the-damage-waiver-bearly-covered-this-one/comment-page-1/

Roger

Perhaps not unusual given the circumstances, but a couple of years ago, there was a solar eclipse that destroyed quite a bit of our lenses and cameras. We had warned people ahead of time, but I was still shocked by how much damage that eclipse caused.

-Zach

Is everyone bald at LensRental?

Only the smart ones. Thinking generates heat, heat kills hair follicles. It's science.

Roger

In science, as things heat up, they become less efficient. Overheating is never a good thing. Just a thought.

- Head full of hair Zach

Roger and I are the smartest people on staff. -- Joey

I notice Aaron seems to be getting smarter the last couple of years. . . . . . .anonymous

Not so sure it's smarts in my case...but, whatever it is seems to have the opposite effect on my beard.

-AC

I remember you had an article about damaged items from the 2017 solar eclipse, have there been any other high rental events that have resulted in large quantities of equipment loss or damage?

Burning man is an annual damage fest for us. Roger

You guys have obviously used (and fixed) a lot of lenses do you have any thoughts on the internal vs external zooming lenses debate?

Realistically is there a significant risk of dust getting into the lens and impacting optical performance?

Thanks

I get to personally check all the lenses where a customer complained that they could see dust inside the lens showing up in their images, and I'm here to tell you, in 11 years, I have never once confirmed that any dust I could find inside a lens showed up. It was always, always sensor dust. -- Joey

I wouldn't be more concerned about finding dust in one over the other, but I would say that external zooms are far more likely to wear out mechanically over time. But that said, it's easy to call a zoom "internal" without the amount of structural support one might expect. If the zooming portion is simply held inside a built-in hood, like we see with many wide angles, then it's about as good as an external zoom.

-AC

All lenses have moving elements and those elements move air, therefore all lenses get dust. All. If you don't see dust, your light isn't bright enough.
With some the dust is obvious and this can be because it's heavier, but also because the front or back elements magnify it a lot. A lot of times when we take a lens apart to dust it, once that element is off it's really hard to find the dust.

It makes logical sense that the external zooming lenses are 'dust pumps', and people love to spout off about it because their series of 2 lenses, but statistically that doesn't really seem the case (and I'm talking hundreds and thousands of copies). The most common 'dusted' lenses include several primes and several non-extending zooms.

Roger

How do I prevent my camera from overheating when shooting an outdoor wedding in the summer? It seems almost unavoidable

Just curious, what camera are you using, and what weather are you facing? I've heard stories of video cameras overheating on the regular, but I hadn't heard it being as common with stills.

-Zach

I have an entry level dslr. Still a noob. I was shooting the ceremony and the camera shut off because it was so hot

By shooting I mean shooting video

Most DSLRs are going to overheat if you shoot continuous video for very long, it's a common thing. Other than shading the camera if there's direct sunlight, the only answer I know is keeping video clips short. DSLRs don't have the heat sinks and fans that dedicated video cameras have to keep them cool. Roger

Do you still have your medical license, Roger? Will you practice again one day?

No, I gave it up years ago, and I will not return to practice. I wouldn't want a doc who is 10 years out of date and I don't want to be that doc either. Roger

What did your friends and family think when you first came up with the idea of Lensrentals? Did they truly believe in the idea or was it something you had to prove over time?

That I was completely, utterly insane and would go bankrupt in a year. There were no exceptions to this, I can't remember anyone positive about it. "So you're going to send stuff to people you don't know, and you think they're going to send it back? Have you lost your mind?" That was at the start. Later on, when I was borrowing money after I'd spent all mine, they got less supportive than that. :-)

Online people were pretty supportive though, and that helped a lot. Remember, this was 2006, so internet business was not the norm like it is today. The watershed was August, 2008. I couldn't borrow anymore money, was kiting credit cards and if we didn't make enough I couldn't pay the last credit card bill in the string. We made it by $2,000 and it got easy after that.

Roger

You’re a rental business, but a ton of the attention over the years has come from your work in both tears downs and later on, rather sophisticated optical measurements. In some cases I’d rather buy one of your used and checked lenses over a brand new model! Was this aspect always something you wanted to be part of the business, or did it happen organically as an offshoot of the need to check your own rentals?

It was kind of an offshoot. Testing started when manufacturers kept saying a bad lens was "within specification" but would not say what specification was. So developing the testing part was originally to argue with the manufacturers, then led to a spin off business.

The tear downs were a natural spin-off from us learning to repair equipment. If we can fix something in-house in 2 days, rather than send it off for 3-6 weeks to get fixed, we obviously want to do that.

Before I started lensrentals, I made part of my living writing books, mostly medical-for-non-medical people. So writing all of up was pretty natural. Roger

Some time back you found that the sensor mounts on a meaningful set of A7-series cameras were failing. At the time you mentioned that you didn't know the root cause but we're going to try to figure it out. Did you ever get any more insight into why these were breaking? Was the issue addressed on later versions of those cameras or later entries into the series? Those of us who do things like carry our cameras on our bicycles would like to know…

Our opinion of the 'why' was an inadequate strength mount that cracked - that stabilizer vibrates at a very high rate very often and it's fairly heavy. Sony looked into it, but never shared their opinion.

I'm pretty certain it's not so much jouncing on a bike as it's a zillion vibrations.

Roger

What has become more clear to us since then is that the breakage is not occurring necessarily from impact. What's more often happening is the screws that hold the sensor in place are gradually coming loose, and therefore not holding it as securely or evenly as it should. I wouldn't worry too much about taking one out on a bike regularly...maybe take the smoothest route to where you're going.

-AC

I didn't fully answer that...later versions, thus far, have not addressed the issue specifically. However, we are taking precautionary measures during inspection to catch it early, before the breakage occurs.

I think that covers it.

-AC

Just starting out with photography and wondering what equipment is absolutely essential to own? And what equipment is better to rent?

Also, do you favor any of the brands and why?

It's hard to say what is essential to own, as it's dependent on what you're shooting. But lenses (assuming you're on a new lens mount) will always retain their value way better than camera bodies. And quality grip gear (C-Stands, light stands, etc, etc) is also a good investment, as the shipping costs moving those around is expensive. But for me, I own all the gear I need to create the work that I advertise and do on a weekly basis, and rent gear when I have a gig that is slightly out of my wheelhouse, and requires me to have additional gear (usually video lighting or audio recording equipment).

-Zach

I think most of us started here favoring one brand or another, and eventually became fairly brand agnostic, until we came out the other side and have clearer preferences for different shooting situations. I was a Nikon guy when I started, and ended up selling my entire kit 6mo in to working here (D3, several lenses, several speedlights). Then I started using a lot of Canon stuff for roller derby photography, especially with the 600EX-RT flashes when those were released. Then I got deep into Olympus stuff for travel. Sony was fun for a bit, shooting weddings with the a7S and not having to think about ISO anymore. But now I've settled in to Fuji, buying my first digital camera in years with the X-T4. Most of the time I'm shooting with the 23 and 56mm lenses. I just like Fuji for the size/weight/quality/performance/price balance.

For starting out, you should own a camera, a standard lens (50mm or 24-70 equivalent), and a decent tripod. Rent anything you're curious about, will only use sparingly, or is expensive and you can bill the rental to your clients. Before I worked here I was mostly renting a 70-200 for the occasional wedding. Those lenses are some of our biggest renters, because they're $2000+. -- Joey

So no one named Len works there?

No, but we made some killer commercials a few years ago "Lensrentals vs Lenny's Rentals"

https://vimeo.com/224698167

https://vimeo.com/224698375

Any chance of expanding into Canada? I wish we had more options for renting gear.

We tried it for a year or two, lost our butt's and won't do it again. Basically you can't promise something will arrive Thursday when customs is going to hold it up for 1, 2, or 12 days. Plus outside of the major cities, delivery got unreliable. Roger

We actually tried this a handful of years ago, but we weren't able to guarantee arrival dates because of customs. We missed too many deadlines, so it just wasn't viable. I'd love to figure out a way to do it in the future. Europe too. In the meantime, depending on where you're located, we have quite a few Canadian clients who order for delivery in the US and just drive over the border for pickup. That obviously depends on you being close to the border, though.

-Ryan

What is your favorite lens for r/astrophotography?

None of us are very much into astro; but I will put this little bit out: Astro is much, much more demanding of lenses than other forms of photography; the least bit of tilt, decentering, field curvature etc. makes nearly no difference shooting a landscape, but can make a lens useless for astro.
I bring this up because all photo lenses have some copy-to-copy variation. Most good astro photographers will need to try 2-3 copies of the Wondermous 24mm f/1.3 or whatever before they find one that is good enough for their needs. At the same time the manufacturer will tell you those ones that weren't good enough are in spec.
So when Joe says he loves the Wondermous, that doesn't mean the copy you get is going to be just as good.

Roger

Fun fact! The Sigma 105mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art was actually designed for astrophotography.

-AC

Because it is excellent. -- Joey

...anything but a Rokinon

-AC

If you've got a good tracking mount, the Canon 200mm f/2L is superb. The Sigma 105 f/1.4 is no slouch, though, if you can't spring for the 200. -- Joey

Have you ever run into issues with renters just straight-up stealing their rental equipment? And if so, what kind of sheepish explanations have you heard when they realized they couldn't get away with it?

Of course! Some try to say it was stolen from them or lost, usually they just disappear. Some do get away with it, but not many. Roger

For those who have never rented gear before, what is something you wish more new customers knew before placing an order or stepping through the door?

also: Your in-depth blog posts are absolutely fantastic.

That they can insure their rental through us. I hate when someone gets charged for dropping a lens or getting a camera wet. Not as much as they hate it. But a lot of the renters didn't realize they could have insured it.

Roger

Are there any pieces of equipment that significantly under or overperformed expectations when it came to rental demand?

Speaking from the video side, sandbags. For anyone unfamiliar these are literally bags filled with sand used to weigh down things like light stands so they don't blow over in the wind. People asked us to carry them fora while, but we resisted because we thought no one would want to pay money to ship sand across the country. They rent super well, though. And it makes sense. People don't want to travel with sandbags or source sand when they reach their shooting location. As a little added safety measure we fill ours with steel shot so they don't leak.

-Ryan

In the old days, we had "Roger's follies" things that I ordered a bunch of because they were SO cool and were gonna rent a ton, that just sat on the shelves till we sold them. Video recording binoculars come to mind. Now we basically crowd source rental input and order what people want.

Roger

What is your best recommendation for lightweight, backpackable, compact travel tripod for airline carry-on with DSLR?

The Peak Design carbon fiber tripod we carry is perfect for this:

https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/peak-design-carbon-fiber-travel-tripod

I love just about everything Peak Design has put out. -- Joey

I'm with Joey on this. I pretty much love all things Peak Design makes...and while I haven't tried their Travel Tripod, I have several friends who own one and love it.

--Zach

There are so many good ones. I'm a fan of the Manfrotto Element MII - decent ballhead included, weighs 3 pounds and folds to 17", reversible. But there's a lot of good ones.

Roger

Joey beat me to it. The Peak Design is a truly well designed tripod. They even have some excellent videos dissecting the various parts for cleaning or replacement purposes.

-Aaron

What song would save you from vecna?

I think the answer is obvious.

-Zach

Morbid Angel - God of Emptiness

...might be a rather confusing situation actually. I'm doomed.
-AC

Will Roger be writing anymore teardowns?

Yes. The question is when. The answer to that is a bit more vague. :-)

Depending on if you keep stats about this sort of thing, what is the most rented lens in the history of the company? What about camera?

I'm pretty sure it's the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II-III (they're pretty much the same lens) with the Canon 24-70 f/2.8 II following up. It makes sense - very useful lenses for the largest renting format, but pricey enough that people might only need them a few times a year so rental makes sense.

I'm less up on the cameras, Joey probably has a better handle on it, but I'd guess the Canon 5DIII because it had such a very long run.

Roger

If stock numbers are any indication, it's the Canon 24-70 2.8 II or 70-200 2.8 (any generation) and probably the 5D4. We probably do have actual rental stats, but that's not my area.-- Joey

If you were to take a photography trip but were only able to bring one lens, which would it be?

Thanks for the question! It obviously depends entirely on where I was going, but I always feel like an incredibly fast 50mm prime is always a safe bet. However, I'm sure someone more practical than me would recommend a 24-70mm or something of that nature, as it gives you way more flexibility.

​

-Zach

I'm the weird one, I'd take a single prime and use that to learn how to use that one focal length in different ways. If I have no idea what I'll see, then probably an 85mm Everyone else will probably be 24-1015mm and such. -- Roger

I have to limit my options, usually to one prime. Otherwise, I'm composing an image for the lens in my pocket rather than the one that's on camera. It's a curse. That said, always Leica, always manual focus, usually all spherical glass.

-AC

I'm with Roger. I'd take a single prime, but I'd take a 40mm for full frame, or whatever equivalent for the sensor size I'm using. --Joey

Do you see the demand for constant lighting for photography going up as opposed to strobes?

Others will have better input than me, but I do, yes, for two reasons. First, there are way better and more powerful constant lights now than even 3-4 years ago. Second, they're easier to learn with for those learning lighting, and other second they can provide a simpler set up without needing triggers, etc.

Roger

Tell us about some of your favourite constant lights for video.

I love the Arri Orbiter if you have the money for it. It's the most versatile light we carry, and everything that Arri makes is built like a tank. I'd also recommend just about anything from Litepanels, especially their most recent Gemini 1x1 models. As for something niche, the Aputure Accent B7c is just really fucking cool. It's the size and shape of a standard E26 light bulb, but with dimming, full RGBW spectrum, and wifi control. It's perfect for replacing and controlling the bulbs on practical fixtures. If the fixture you're using is powered, they'll just run off the socket. If not, they have an internal battery. I own two of them and bring them in my gig bag on every shoot.

-Ryan

Sort of? The constant lighting market is growing bigger every day as new and better lights get released. But constant and strobe lighting have different uses. If you're trying to freeze action, you have to use strobes. For still subjects or minimal movement, we have seen more photographer try using more constant lighting sources, because they really are easier to manage than strobes for that sort of stuff, especially as brands expand their modifier options. -- Joey

The demand for constant lighting is certainly up, and I could see that being the future for photography in the future. While strobes are far brighter than constant lighting when shooting photos, the practicality of doing photo and video with a single light just makes too much sense for it to not be the future. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see stills cameras moving to have a Native ISO of 800 or even 1600 someday, to compensate for this change. But for now, it's just speculation.

-Zach

To add one more answer here, the Arri Orbiter has been a popular rental for continuous photography lighting lately. It's super versatile, bright, and easy to adapt to strobe light modifiers. Not cheap, though.

-Ryan

I had that question for years, why are electronics, camera, and lens rentals so much more expensive than let's say a car rental? The car costs 40-50k and you can rent one for $30-$50/day. But a lens that's maybe 5-10k costs $100/day?

Without being an expert on car rental, I think you'd have trouble finding a $30-50 day rate on a $40,000 car. Economy rentals through, like, Enterprise are higher than that, and those cars are on the cheaper side.

And on the lens side, we actually don't have much that rents for 100/day, at least once you're paying for more than one day. For example, our Zeiss supreme primes rent for about 780 for 7 days, but that's a $20,000 lens. The day rate goes down as the rental period goes up, just like a rental car.

Plus I think a car can rent for a lot longer than a camera lens. We typically only rent anything for two years before we sell it off. Car rental places also charge more fees, make money on gas, and are often franchises, so corporate may be making their money from real estate and franchise fees more than rentals.

-Ryan

What Ryan says is absolutely true. There's more though. For any rental business the simple formula is Rental Fee / ((Initial cost + Maintenance cost) - residual value) has to be positive.

Car rental companies pay way less for initial cost than what the car would cost at a dealer. In some cases, even less than the car cost to make because car manufacturers see a benefit in the exposure. We pay retail, pretty much same price you would.

Residual value for some lenses is pretty decent, 50% or maybe more. For many lenses and all cameras it's way less than that. Plus only a portion of our gear lives to be sold, sometimes less than half. The rest is written off.

Maybe this is a silly question, but do you have an in-house software development team? And if so, do you ever take on internships / new junior developers?

I've been a full-time wedding photographer for the last 12 years and am now going back to school for computer science with the goal of being a software developer. I don't think any of those skills would actually be useful in software development, but always thought it would be interesting to work with a company so integral to the world of photography.

We have a pretty large (12 or 14 I think) programming staff and write all our own software. They haven't taken interns that I know of. Roger

Thoughts on buying used equipment vs brand new?

It depends on what it is and how much you save. But lenses generally hold up well for years. Cameras it depends much more on usage. Tripods, light stands, things like that are usually great bargains.

What's something photographers should rent or bring but often don't?

Could be photo-related or non photo-related (e.g. comfortable shoes, ear plugs at loud events).

I'm specifically interested in event photography, but open to anything that could potentially save a shoot.

Thanks for doing this AMA.

Back up equipment. I can't count the number of wedding / special events, etc. that lack of back up something ruined the shoot; batteries, flash, camera, whatever. If you only have one of something necessary, you're taking a risk.

One that stands out in my mind is a guy who I talked to for months as he planned his once in a lifetime safari; we rented him several expensive lenses for the trip. His own camera failed on day 2 of 12.

Roger

I give this recommendation often to both beginner photographers and videographers: get a good five-in-one reflector (and either a way to mount it or a person to hold it). We rent them if you want to try one out, but you should honestly just buy one. As a beginner, you're probably going to be working a lot in natural light. Learning how to shape and modify existing light sources with a five-in-one will both make your work look better and give you a better understanding of lighting fundamentals when you're ready to start actually lighting scenes yourself.

-Ryan

get a good five-in-one reflector (and either a way to mount it or a person to hold it).

What situations would you use the gold reflector for? I can think of situations for the white, silver and the diffuser, but not the gold side.

Is it worth paying more for a name-brand reflector like Westcott, or is a cheap one by a company like Neewer good enough? Maybe the cheap one isn't as color accurate or isn't made from quality materials?

This is probably a more helpful answer for videographers than for photographers, but I've used the gold side often to warm up sunlight just a touch without having to go in and mess with color correction in post. Say I'm doing an outdoor interview and want to reflect the sun onto my subject and also separate the subject from the background a bit color-wise.

Paying more for a name brand will make more difference in build quality than actual light quality, but, since these things get folded up and hauled in and out of a bag, I'd say it's worth paying for build quality. Luckily even the name brand ones are pretty cheap relative to just about any other piece of photo gear.

-Ryan

Backups. I always have a backup camera at every paid event I shoot. I get free rentals, but if I didn't, I'd bundle the rental fee into my pricing. -- Joey

what audio and lighting gear gets rented the most?

Also, is there a reason lighting gear generally cheaper to rent than others (market price much higher gear with same rental price)? not sure with you guys, but its true where i live(no lensrentals in my area sadly)

Our most popular single light is the Litepanels Astra 6x, likely because it's affordable, bright, durable, and easily battery-powered. Different stuff is more popular in different fields, though.

Audio-wise, our most popular items are Sennheiser lavalier mics, again because they're affordable and super durable. Audio is a broad category, though. We also have popular audio recorders, shotgun microphones, even stuff like guitar pedals.

Finally, on the price thing, there are a lot of different factors, but, without sounding like an ad, we're usually cheaper than any brick and mortar rental house because of volume. We ship so many orders (often like 500 a day) that we can afford to take lower margins per order. Thanks for the question!

-Ryan

Any thoughts on meta-lenses being incorporated into a camera lens one day? Is it bunk or the future?

I don't think with cameras as we have them now, but certainly I expect there will be uses. People forget there are more industrial, security, and robotic lenses made than photo/video lenses. And eventually in imaging as we know it? Depends on the price, I bet.

Roger

Which full-frame fisheye lens (adaptable to Sony EF mount) is the sharpest? Thank you.

I honestly can't say first hand, but all fisheye lenses, especially the 15mm ones, are extremely sharp. It's apparently a very easy lens to design.
roger

How does one get started in lens repair / disassembly.. besides buying a bunch of cheap practice lenses on eBay. Is there like a starter tool kit ?

There's really not a good way any more other than to go find an entry job at a repair shop.

There used to be some schools, but they've been closed for years. Aaron and I bought DVD's and manuals someone salvaged from the last school that closed and were pretty much self taught. The camera companies are extremely secretive about their manuals, but we could buy some on literally the black market from Russia and some other countries where there were still paper manuals (there aren't anymore); that at least gave us schematics and parts lists.

And we had a lot of lenses to practice on (Aaron has like 10,000 hours of repair time). After that we kind of forced our way into workshops and things; Aaron's certified by Zeiss, Leica, and others.
Roger

High end cine lenses: Zeiss, Leitz, or Cooke?

If it was that simple, they wouldn't all exist. In the high-end cinema world, money, at least when it comes to the lens package, isn't often the limiting factor. Regardless of price, then, all three of these brands (and others like Arri, Fujinon, and Canon) get chosen for particular projects depending on what the DP is looking for. Speaking VERY broadly, Zeiss optics tend to be extremely sharp, low-distortion, and true to color. Leitz and Cooke are thought to offer more "character," whether that's through smoothness, color rendering, etc. Specific characteristics can vary between model lines and even particular focal lengths. There's no right answer for every situation, just depends on what the project needs.

-Ryan

They are all optically superb, in unique ways. Mechanically, Zeiss 100%

-AC

Depends on the look you want. They're all great, and they're all a little different, and DPs usually have their personal preference. -- Joey

What is the most difficult teardown you've done so far? Is there a lens in particular you'd like to do next?

Aaron would be the best to answer this since he does all the work and mostly offer helpful comments like "I wouldn't do that" and "Where did this come from?" But the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM (original version) comes to mind, that took two days to do if I recall.

Want to know the only one we broke? A Canon 600mm f/11 that i bought with my own money to take on a vaca, we did it right before I left and I first checked it when I arrived on vacation. We'd put the extension lock sensor in backwards.

Roger

Technically I didn't break it...in fact, I fixed it when you got back :b

-AC

Technically I was the one who didn't mount it and check that it worked before leaving the office. So it's all on me. Lens sucked anyway, I never used it again. Another Roger's Folly.

Roger mentioned the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM, and I think we'll do a comparison teardown with the new version sometime soon. I'm looking forward to that very much, because there was, um, room for improvement.

-AC

Aaron, who actually does the work while I have snacks and make snarky comments, said the Canon 100-500mm was really tough.
https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2021/01/the-secret-of-the-broken-element-a-canon-rf-100-500mm-f4-7-7-1-teardown/
Roger

Thoughts on the tamron 35-150 F2-2.8? I got one a few weeks ago and I'm loving it so far

A really good lens. I was a little leary of it because of the zoom range, but Tamron has been making some killer lenses lately.

Roger

Are the Leica SL lenses built much better (especially internally) than equivalent Canon RF lenses?

That's a very broad brush, maybe too broad, but let's see if this answers your question.

Leica SL lenses are going to be, as a general rule, more optically correct, that is they will have less copy-to-copy variation, the optics will be more uniform from one copy to the next.

Canon probably has superior electronics, things like IS systems and perhaps autofocus might be better, although I couldn't say noticeably. Especially with AF, the camera plays a role, too.

As far as construction quality, durability, etc. both rate extremely high on my scale, among the more robust lenses made.

Roger

What is a good lens for beginners to making videos?

I know "it depends" isn't a very satisfying answer, but there are so many factors at play here that it's tough to recommend anything definitive. What kind of projects are you shooting? What camera do you have? Do you have any lenses already? As the broadest possible recommendation, I'd probably start with a mid-range relatively fast zoom. Something like a 24-70 f/2.8 or equivalent for your sensor size. Our photo folks are right on that it's best to start with a prime lens for stills, but a zoom will be helpful for video.

-Ryan

Mostly just B-roll footage, talking head interview footage, and possibly some fancy cinematic shots.

Yeah, specific lens will depend on specific camera, but I think I'd still stick with a mid-range fast-ish zoom, just to be versatile and cover as many bases as possible. For this question, and really any question, if you want to give us a call or send us an email (contact info is on our website), one of our techs will gladly talk you through some more specific advice even if you're not renting anything. We really pride ourselves on having actual experienced human beings handling our customer support. None of them are outsourced, they're all full-time employees with benefits, most of them are photographers themselves, and they're all super helpful. Again, not to sound like an ad.

-Ryan

It's going to depend a lot on what camera you'll be using, or at least what type of camera.

Mirrorless bodies combined with super-tele lenses seems to have a consistent issues across brands where trying to rack focus from a distant small target, like a bird, to something closer (maybe another bird) results in the lens more or less getting stuck and requiring a quick spin of the manual focus ring. This problem has some debate in the wildlife community in particular, but it feels like you can find enough people using each brand to conclude that it IS a problem that needs to be addressed. What are your thoughts on this? Is this an issue you’ve seen, and if so, what do you think the eventual fix will be?

I handle all of our incoming customer complaint repair gear, and this is the first I've heard of it, specifically for mirrorless cameras. Have you found it to be any more prevalent than on DSLRs? I suspect more people switching to mirrorless cameras lately probably has the reporting of such issues with those cameras more frequent than they used to be, without it actually meaning the problem is more pronounced than with previous gear. The only thing close to this problem that I see with any consistency is with the Sigma 150-600 and 60-600 in particular, but that's because the AF motors are failing, not because the cameras in use are having a harder time with near/far subjects. Racking full focus like that has always come with the occasional hiccups, though. -- Joey

Interesting! Yeah, I’ve been shooting for probably a decade now across a number of DSLRs and now with the Canon R5. It’s much more pronounced on the R5 than it ever was on any of my DSLRs (using the same lens EF 500 II IS USM). I have a buddy who shoots on Nikon and recently switched to the Z9 and he’s encountered the same behavior on that system. It becomes particularly problematic in the Spring when shooting Warblers. You have a small bird perched at some distance that puts the lens focus out pretty far. And then you try to quickly refocus to something close and the lens just kinda hangs up on that distant target. There’s some discussion around possibly something like Canons Quad Pixel AF fixing this, but who knows.

Yeah, if that's the case, it's probably something to do with how AF is working on those cameras and having to discern out of focus subjects as more than just blurs. Kind of like working with a macro lens. Even on a DSLR, those don't like to go between infinity and macro distances very well. If it is an AF sensor design issue on those cameras, the next gen will likely resolve that problem. -- Joey

I wish I had a useful comment, but this is the first time I've heard of that. Roger

How do I prevent my camera from overheating when shooting an outdoor wedding in the summer? It almost seems unavoidable

Keep it shaded as much as possible. Shoot as little video as possible. Let it rest often. Depending on your climate, overheating may just not be avoidable, unfortunately. -- Joey

When are you going to get the 150-400mm Olympus pro available for rent?

It's not released yet, but we have a pre-order page up if you want to jump on the list for when it arrives:https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/olympus-150-400mm-f4.5-tc1.25x-ed-is-pro

-Ryan

Edit: I should've added that the way this works is you place an order for whatever length of time you want, and we basically email you once we have the lens ready to ship. If you want the order fulfilled at that time, we send it to you. If not, we cancel the order, don't bill anything, and move on to the next person on the list.

What's a good first flash modifier you recommend for getting into off-camera flash photography for portraits and headshots?

Umbrella vs. softbox, best size, easiest to setup? Especially for shooting outside on-location.

I love Photek Softlighters for their portability. Folds like an umbrella, works like a softbox. But if you're doing location shooting outdoors in daylight, you'll want a lot of power, especially when using modifiers. That's something to keep in mind. -- Joey

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No idea, really. Sony sendeth when Sony sendeth.

Roger