The Coming Collapse of the Camera Rental Market
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 26 дек 2018
- Canon C200 Masterclass: sellfy.com/p/cqouyd/
--------------------
My 2020 Filming Setup:
--------------------
Main Camera: bhpho.to/2ICkZ8w
B Cam: amzn.to/35TL2C2
Cards: amzn.to/2WAUiuC
New A cam Lens: amzn.to/2szw4mg
Wireless Video: amzn.to/2P6Tozr
Wireless Monitor: amzn.to/2LjI7Lc
Tripod: bhpho.to/2IyIyPs
Crazy Key light: amzn.to/2MP9Bvp
Backlight: amzn.to/2XNB4yF
Computer: amzn.to/2KpWRtd
RAM: amzn.to/31Cbnn1
Storage for Days: amzn.to/2RggGU8
Everything else: kit.co/CrimsonEngine
-------------------- 
Кино
Don't forget the people who have got screwed by theft. There's been several articles that you can do a Google search on Kitsplit where owners even with insurance on both ends have had people steal their gear and not being able to do anything about it. Kinda crazy to think you own a $50,000 camera only to rent it for $400 and have someone walk away free and clear with it. I personally wouldn't rent my gear out, but that's just me.
I was just talking about this with someone. Someone running away with your camera isn't covered by most insurance because its fraud, not theft. Some places are now offering coverage against 'voluntary surrender' which protects you against this, but its more expensive. I don't rent my camera either, for what its worth :)
I actually thought about renting my camera out but I couldn't find myself to do it. This was the main reason.
I only rent my camera (Varicam) when i can accompany the camera as a second AC or something. But no way in hell am i turning it loose to just anyone. Especially if they aren’t willing to pay a reasonable rate.
Just an update on this. I did rent my camera on ShareGrid. It’s a long story. But sure enough the camera came back in horrible condition. The IR Filter was removed and i didn’t have the tools to replace it. The camera was dusty AF and covered in grip Velcro.
When i hit up the renters on ShareGrid they were acting smug as hell. And i said it was super unprofessional to bring the camera back like that. What if i needed to rent or shoot tomorrow without the tools to change it back?
So i wrote them a negative review. And the DP called and said he would have come and changed the filter if i didn’t write the review. WTH? If you were cool people you would have come anyway on GP bcz treat people the way they want to be treated right ?
Anyway i dogged them so hard on ShareGrid. I made sure nobody would rent from them again. But they actually called ShareGrid, and i presume paid to get the negative review removed.
So i got on the horn w sharegrid after seeing my review was gone and they claimed it was unprofessional for me to write such a review. Which is when i realized they paid to get it removed. So i told ShareGrid I’ve rented plenty of items for lesser value and have had a great experience. But when i rent 30.000$ in equipment you won’t let me leave a review. And i told them i had audio of the DP saying that he would have come to fix the camera if i hadn’t written a negative review. Thus proving there was a review and it was in deed negative and they did mash up my
Filters and camera.
I would have been cool if i could have just written another review. Maybe less vitriolic. But they claimed their system won’t allow that. And I’m like YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU REALLY WANT on your system. Even create a false booking just to open up another review.
So I’m currently looking into some legal action to get them to at least pay the camera intake cleaning and service fees $500.
Would love to come your show and give full story !!
Be safe! Nothing beats the quality control and support a real rental house can provide. On set and the camera goes down? A cable shorts out? Rental houses have your back - Sharegrid pleb won’t, and then you’re screwed on set.
Over the years the cameras are getting more expensive but the rental rates are coming down because everyone thought that equipment rental is a good profit business. Imagine in a small country like Singapore we have about 8 units of the Arri Alexa 35 and on average there are only 4 project that could afford the setup. At the end there are price war and owners will not be able to recover the cost. Glad you highlighted this.
I found that bigger rental items, like Minis, seem to have a rental price at around 1% of the total value of the item. Making it hard for earning a return, but for smaller items, the rental can be higher to almost 7-10% of total value of the item.
So I don’t think the camera rental market is going to collapse but just shift to rentals for lower value cameras since the market is saturated with affordable cameras. How can a camera like the Mini compete with these prices on p2p platforms?
Typically Mini packages from rental houses can cover their costs because they do get rented out, and they are in high demand for larger clients. And a mini will go out with so many a la carte items that you can make money and sustain a business. But that’s for a much larger scale business model, not p2p.
I used to be based in LA, but I’m based in HK as a cinematographer. And I’ve seen a shift in the commercial market for shooting with cheaper cameras. McDonald’s commercials being shot with Canon 1DXs and Master Primes...
So I think local market demands will also affect rental prices and patterns.
Tim Richardson do you know any good camera rental company in HK?
Jean Chindeko Depends what kind of package you need, PM me if you need details
Thank you for this information!
Only recently discovered your channel, and have to say... I very much enjoy it. The topics you cover are different to the usual gamut (see what I did there 😂), and I am enjoying running through your back catalogue. Re this video - yep, agree 100%, it's a simple matter of economics, market demand and growth of the digital camera market. Keep up the great content, greetings from Wales.
It’s been this way for decades...The Alexa sensor has been out for over 7 years, the Mini 3-4 years, the rental market is fine, the gear they are renting is getting old. I wouldn’t rent from Sharegrid, if I need an Alexa I rent from Arri or a local reputable camera house. Lastly, if people purchase a camera for rental only to me that is a very poor business decision, there is a new camera coming out every 10-18 months. Look at all of those RED 8K Weapons...
Crazy idea: We need more legal and financial protections for collective ownership. Say a group of friends wants to draw up a contract to each throw in few thousand for an expensive camera, ther the contract spanning that each collective member gets a set number of consecutive days have per year... Safer than renting to strangers but you could risk losing friends over conflicts.
Very interesting! This is sort of a timeshare idea and I think it could work. For me, its the downtime when I'm shooting my own tests and experiments that are the most valuable.
Great information. Thanks
I'm really glad I subscribed to your channel. Thanks for this video.
Cheers! Glad to have you with us.
interesting topic and insight. thanks for the effort and the sharing. thumbs up.
You’re spot on I’ve already seen people try to sell their RED and Alexa packages at whatever allow them to eliminate the debt. Crazy Times that will continue to get even more wild as 8K enters the consumer space in 2019
Crazy times indeed! I think the biggest point I didn't mention in the video was that the skills to be a good DP and the skills to run a camera rental house are not the same, and a lot of people underestimated that it takes.
Very good point.
Also, cameras like the C200II and FS7II have image quality that's more than good enough to tell stories with.
99% of people will be watching the content and not thinking " what camera was that shot on? "
I was using my FS7 mkII onset a few weeks back, and the director loved the image. Yes, ARRI & RED are the higher end "go to" cameras for bigger productions, but affordable cameras are fast catching up, and already good enough.
Some of the best films in the past were made with lesser equipment but are popular because content is king at the end of the day.
I find myself renting jibs, gimbals and other helpful accessories instead of cameras these days, though I do rent the odd high performance lens.
I remember first working with RED. The director/DP has just purchased the new (just released) Epic Dragon, RED first 6k camera. It was very impressive and he was in high demand, as everyone wanted that camera and paid him a premium price for his services. A year and a half later, The new RED was announced, and shortly after that, no one wanted to use the “old RED camera.” He had trouble finding work & he hadn’t nearly paid off his camera.
Renting out a camera seemed like a solution to this, but like you’ve mentioned, with prices continuing to drop, spending your house down payment on a camera just seems like a trap, despite how much “is promised” with an expensive camera.
A camera like the MAVO LF seems like a better option for cinema work.
I love using RED, but have never owned one.
thanks for this info. i had no idea about this shift in prices but it makes me excited to rent. i own a c200 but would love more experience with Alexa's. sweet!
Great video! I’m a fan!
For me, renting has never been worth the money. Im lucky enough to work 3-5 days a week and I absolutely need my tools to work when I need them, so I never rent them out.
Likewise, if I’m renting from someone, i have no idea what kind of condition the camera package is in. I worked on a commercial where ports were broken, cables are damaged and monitor wasn’t fully functional. But hey, I got the camera for a steal, right? Minus the fact I could possibly ruin my shoot or worse, risk looking like an amateur in front of my client who’s paying me good money to produce a product.
I don’t think renting should be a means to an end (unless you’re a rental house). It should be a strategy you use to make a small bit of money on the side. It makes zero sense to invest 55k in a camera if you aren’t getting clients who are willing to pay the camera costs. 400 bucks in passive income is cool, just not when your camera comes back and your 400 dollar cable needs replacing.
Seems like the title of the video should have included sharegrid or peer to peer, these problems don't seem like rental house problems. The large majority of the market doesn't do peer to peer, simply because if you need a specific accessory for the build chances that an owner op has it are extremely low, where its guaranteed at the rental house.
I think your video content is fantastic and insightful. One thing though, can you put on a wider lens or stand further back so we can see your hands? It feels so weird watching a talking head without natural conversational hand gestures y’know?
Hi, would You share an information, what is Your export setting to make so good 12 bits colors quality of Your YT videos, please? What color profile - Rec709? Prores 422 HQ codec?
Thanks! I shoot 12bit Raw, grade and transcode to prores 422, then upload mp4 2k 18bps for RUclips.
If you can’t afford the camera or have enough work to pay it off you shouldn’t consider purchasing in the first place. I personally rent out my gear on ShareGrid but only rent because the gear is just sitting around why not make money on it. Buying it solely to rent out to think you’re going to pay it off quickly isn’t smart economics. I use the profits from my rentals to either buy more gear or pay for personal projects.
That’s cool though, you make enough to get more gear?
I was thinking of renting my camera, but now i have changed my mind.
That's like Blockbuster bankrupted when Netflix and others went digital. Websites where individuals can rent it will replace rental stores.
Safe way to rent, is to trustworthy friends and colleagues only or attend the shoot. If you don't have a successful business, getting booked on a weekly basis, then it's best to stay away from $7K and up cameras.
And 4 years later the camera rental market is still gangbusters.
It really hit the wall during covid :)
Good food for thought. I think companies like Arri are in for hard times. They really need to bring the price of their cameras down out of the stratosphere for several reasons. Fairly soon, if not already, the camera you use to shoot your project with will become irrelevant as they all look pretty damn good now. Most people cannot tell if you shot on an Arri , Black Magic or a Canon. Further, with technology changing so fast it makes no sense to invest in a camera that costs more than a few thousand dollars and that's virtually obsolete as soon as its released. It seems to me, at the moment at least, the sweet spot is the price the C200 sits at. Canon needs to stop worrying about whether they might gut their more expensive cameras by offering more features and just go for it. Rental houses are, as you suggested, doomed. Soon the studios will figure out that they need to go back to their original production model and have their own camera departments. It will be much cheaper. They won't repair them, they'll just throw them away. Cameras are no longer the domain of fine watchmakers... soon you'll shoot your feature on the camera you buy at the grocery check out stand. The camera companies know this and that's why there pushing 8K and 12K when the audience can't tell the difference from HD and 4K. It's going to get strange out there.
I don't think the market is going to collapse. I think that so many people are now opening up to rent out equipment that there's a rush to the market. Basic supply and demand. Hopefully, someone spending any amount on a camera, be it a 8000 or 50000, doesn't do so thinking renting it out is going to pay it off. Hopefully, if you're spending that much on camera, you're actually making money off of the camera or have enough where it wouldn't bother you to spend that money. I saved for a while and wanted to get the c200 but realized the comment and the amount of time it would take to pay that off. So I went with the c100 mk 2. It's paid off. Perhaps when my business picks up more I'll invest in a c200. People need to stay smart when investing so much money and shouldn't rely on renting out equipment to pay for their stuff.
Stanley Marcellus Simons well said. Get some talent and pay for your gear w that. It’s like buy a Ferrari in Cleveland and trying to make payments via Turo. Overkill
Location matters. Where are you located with those kind of sharegrid prices? I feel like ppl will get burned with $400/day Alexa mini rentals and will either go towards Lensrentals or local rental houses. A race to the bottom for camera rentals will have ppl not respecting them and treating them as commodities and some
Owners getting burned bad.
Totally. I think most, if not all, big shows hire from somewhere like AbleCine that has a long history of support. Its the peer to peer prices that are falling.
Knowing the value is what separates the pros from the joes.. gotta charge what it’s worth. You don’t see iPhone prices plummeting.
Cody Jones haha about that 😂
With the coming addition of the Arri Mini LF, the market for the mini will be worthless.
C200 rental price dropped because newer cameras came out. People no longer want to rent them for $500. Most camera houses probably made their money back on them fairly quickly, and continues to make money for the lower price. Also with the Alexa mini packages on sharegrid, I don't think thats a good comparison. You don't know how well those individual owners take care of their equipment. You have no support to fall back on if something goes wrong. With a rental house, you know it will be solid. And if something happens to break, you can call up the rental house and they can fly out a replacement for no additional cost.
it's not all that's collapsing. Websites are consolidating. Taking pay for "reviews." Some kid is willing to shoot your previous clients project for peanuts, youtubers are getting demonitized.
The list goes on and on.
It's the same as any financial crash....never buy what you can't afford. Buying something specifically to rent it out and own it at the end....u might as well just buy a 2nd hand camera!
Its a solid enough plan until too many people do it and supply outstrips demand.
Ha!
In Ukraine i can rent Red Epic for 150$
Alexa Mini for 200$.
The main idea of rentals in giving cameras to movies and series. Production of thous takes to 2 months.
50 days x 200$ = 10 000$
What you talking about man. they are going out of business because they are too expensive!! 🤣
Why am I going to pay $700 to rent a BMPCC6K for 2weeks. I might as well buy the camera.
Or a RED epic for $6000 for 2 weeks. I might as well buy it.
This is pretty interesting. I’ve noticed a huge shift in the price of second hand RED’s but yet the price of second hand cinema line Canon’s seem to hold strong value. I feel like when it comes to RED’s they’ve halved in price in terms of a fully kitted 6K setup. I believe it’s the sub $10k 4K camera offerings (like the c200, Blackmagic URSA’s, even gh5 and 1dx2) being used a whole lot more for commercial work so therefore driving the price of the higher end offerings way down. Also an EOS R for $2300 body that can hold it’s own against cine line offerings with 10 bit 4K CLOG... the market has already shifted!
Michael Drowley well said sir!
Yes, I got a EOS R just for that reason.
@@TylerEdwards Thanks Mate!
Red image quality really hasn’t improved. Just resolution gotten more and more. 😂
pixelatorNYC Yeah, really good point you make!
I think the small independent rental houses be the one's to collapse. Places like Keslow Camera and Panavision will thrive because they rent to professionals who film for the major studios. This could even make prices go up at the larger houses and or they could stock up on more cameras to rent by buying them cheap from the small guy. Well, that's just my 2 cents.
The smaller rental houses won’t be replaced by services like this. There’s no quality control through services like this, no support, no guarantee that the gear will work on set. This is a breeding ground for scams or productions cheating out, their camera going down on set and not having any support because they rented from a random pleb rather than a rental house who would be there to support the production.
I don't understand why would anyone buy a 20K or 50K camera when there's Blackmagic URSA mini Pro that costs 5K. And does the same thing.
Because it doesn't.
Arri and blackmagic are in 2 different leagues......yes the law of diminishing returns is getting bigger and bigger as technology and wonderful capitalism makes it easier for us. But the ursa mini pro, while certainly one of the best looking images for its price range, does not have the flexibility and functionality that the arri has. I'm pretty sure you can't change the color matrixes on the blackmagic; its very limited in camera for color correction. That's just one of many things that the arri has over the blackmagic Lol, even sony has more color tools in-camera than blackmagic.
Bcz the Ursa Mini looks like crap compared to an Alexa. If you can’t see that ... keep shooting.
With respect to Blackmagic cameras you want to buy two and hope and pray that NEITHER one of them fails right before your most coveted clients eyes.
Record Button at the price they’re flogging then for. That’s not a bad idea 😂
Ok, people might be able to afford to buy cinema cameras, but that's just like 1/10 of the whole thing. Probably market will shift to AirBnB, Uber, models.
That's interesting. I think of Sharegrid and kitsplit as a model very similar to Uber, where the company makes a cut but you take the lions share of the risk.
sounds like a lot of guys bought the cinema cameras without doing a proper business plan. They will get burned and learn a lesson the hard way, then the market will settle down again. I was at a talk by a Sony ICE and he says cameras only last a couple of years before new models make them obsolete.
Very true. Every few years a camera comes along that stays the standard one segment for years, like the c100 or the alexa mini, but you never know what these are going to be.
Oh wow you’re like super handsome
That's all CGI :)
There are plenty of people on share grid flogging gear at cut throat rates destroying the market. But i figure they suck so they can’t recoup monthly payments via actual work. It’s there only
Option bcz no one wants to pay for their creative talent 😂😂😂
i've been making media for clients for a long time and i must say, your assessment is a bit harsh.
Imagine Sony A7s iii suddenly drop with 8k 😂😂😂 these guys will probably never earn their $ back by renting ARRI for $400/day