EX3 Rental: Costly lesson
 

Today I got my EX3 back from a local rental house who rented it out for a day....and when I looked it over.. I saw that the cheek pad was broken off. They told me that the end client would cover it and they, the rental house, are sure that it would not cost that much to replace it.

What bugs me is that the rental client said nothing about the damage when they brought the camera back this morning. After they left, the rental manager looked over the camera and saw the damage...then called the client at once and they told him: "we were hoping you would not notice it"....but since its all plastic, it should not cost that much and we will pay for it".....let us know the price". They have closed for the day.

Well, Sony strike's back again..as I called Sony Parts and to my surprise, that little plastic cheek pad is $115.37.......

So the moral of the story.....

1)"be careful what you break, especially if its a Sony part"
2)"be truthful about what you break, as when Monday morning comes...the surprise they are getting....is the bill for the part...."

HTH

Then charge them double, so they might learn to be more careful next time, plus your inconvenience.

Remember the saying..."It's a rental, don't be gentle".

Just say no to rentals, it isn't worth it in the long run. What else did they do to your camera that isn't so easily detected?

dude, this is why i never rent my stuff out. there a VERY FEW select people in town I know I can trust, anyone else, can call someone else to rent EX series cameras. i agree charge them double

Damage Deposit
 

If that is the best they could come up with for an excuse, then I'd surely be insisting on a damage deposit before renting it again. At this point, you have no assurance that they will pay for the damage, especially at the quoted value. Good luck on your recovery.

Thanks for your input...I have done business with the rental company since 1989 and I know the owner and the manager real well, besides we are "patting" each others back as they were going to buy a EX3 for the company last January...but when the economy went South and I told them that I was going to buy out a fellow cameraman, who had the camera....we came up with a cross renting deal.

As my EX3 is under a bank loan for the next 2 years (using my brothers CD bank account as collateral)...so it has to make money in some way. The manager told me this afternoon that...."I will make it right", as the camera has picked up more rental business in the past few weeks....and its under their insurance.

The other stuff done to the camera....all the settings and picture profiles were changed...which is what I expected....But I do hear what all of you are saying....Years ago I would never rented out my betacam to anyone, but these times today are very strange......

thanks

The cheek pad came off? I wonder how that happened? Maybe they dropped the camera, hoping nobody would notice that the lens is out of alignment too! You better check the camera from top to bottom, in and out.

One of our rented out cameras was taken through a car wash. I jest not.
The none to bright people using it neglected to delete the clips from the second card.
We could see the water running down the front of the 486 filter and I'm suspecting the strong detergent used in the car wash has damaged the filter.
Despite the washing the camera continues to work flawlessly.

When you consider that a daily rental rate is usually about 1/15th -1/10th the value of the camera, I'd say it's well worth the risk.

Please tell me where anyone can get 10% of the purchase price as the daily rental on a camera. Local rates are under 3% for cameras, more durable kit such as lights and grips around 2%.

EX daily rental is 1/10 value? ...Wrong
 

The EX series are between 6-8 grand. A 15th of my EX3 at 8300 is $550. This guy was lucky if he made $250. Here in LA the price is about $250 or less if you find a sucker.

$250 is the standard rate and thats like 1/30of the value, and that is a lot exposure. I rent my gear but go with it as a camera assistant. If I don't like the usage I address it before the problem occurs (usually).

$250.00 for a rental. Yikes what a saturated market.

In NY I recently rented an EX-3 for $275. At 10000 for camera with bag a couple of cards etc that is still about a 37 Day to pay off rate for the camera. In the old days we would rate Betacams at about 100 days payoff. Of course they were a little more durable but had more repair and maintenance costs. The DVX and HVX -200 style cameras seemed to break the 1/100 th rental number in the market which meant buying a bunch of smaller cameras might have been a better investment than 1 larger camera. Of course the justification for a faster payoff on the gear is the prime rental lifetime of the cameras has gotten shorter than it used to be.

Very True.

The amount of money i make renting my EX1 and HVX kits out is insane, they've both paid for themselves twice over just on rentals alone.

All rental clients sign a contract agreeing to be liable for all replacement, repair or insurance costs if the gear comes back in a worse condition than how it left.

I also make sure i know exactly where the gear will be being used, what they are filming and who will be operating it.

Getting a good rental agreement written up is very important. However despite having this in place i still dont just rent to anyone.