Canon repair and body hire.

[wingnut]

I need to send my 40d away to be checked over - Dodgy shutter , there is a lag sometimes, not huge but enough to annoy me, it does it when using main button and one on grip. Just worried it might fail altogether.
But my problem is I have not real camera downtime and will need to have a working Canon body whilst mine is away for repair.
Does anyone know of a company that does both or any recommendations for either. Seen some places that are charging a small fortune for body only hire. Almost cheaper to buy a new one and then resell on ebay . Or a second hand one at that.

Cheers in advance.

 

[CSB]

I've heard good things about www.hireacamera.com but never used them myself. You are right about charges though, shocking IMO. Might be better to do as you say and buy a second hand spare body.

 

[StewartR]

I'd happily recommend HireACamera.com (for cameras only, obviously). I've met Guy and Helen who run the company and their hearts are in the right place.

 

[wingnut]

Cheers guys, that's who I looked at earlier and I am still reeling in shock at the price for a low end DSLR, understand it for high end medium format gear but £227 for a 2 weeks hire of a 40D is a very steep in my book, plus there's delivery on top of that too... Ouch.
Shame you don't do camera hire Stewart...
I will continue the search.

 

[StewartR]

Shame you don't do camera hire Stewart...

Yes, we've thought about it. But we're not terribly keen on the idea. Here's why:

• We think we understand the economics of lens hire (though we haven't been in business long enough to be 100% certain of that!), but we're sure we don't understand the economics of camera hire.
• We're starting to develop a good understanding of the kinds of situations in which people might want to hire lenses, but - with the obvious exceptions of try-before-you-buy and my-camera-is-broken - we don't understand the kinds of situations in which people might want to hire bodies.
• We're concerned about the depreciation of bodies. Lenses stay in production for years, but there's always a newest-and-best body out every 12-18 months.
• We're concerned about the testing workload. (Say you'd hired a 1Ds Mk III from us. How long would it take us to ensure that it was all working correctly when you returned it? I dread to think.)
• We're concerned that the complexity of modern DSLRs, and the associated learning curve, would mean that many customers would have an unsatisfactory hire experience. (If you gave me, say, a Nikon D3 to use for a week, I very much doubt I would have got the hang of it by the end of the week.)
• And last but certainly not least, we're pouring all the money we have - and lots that we don't - into buying new lenses. There's no sign that's going to change any time soon.

I'm not ruling it out for the future, and I try never to say never, if you see what I mean. But I'm certainly not in a hurry.

Please feel free to try to persuade me why I'm wrong.