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It’s the end of the year and time to reflect. As is tradition, Lensrentals does it with a year-end article slicing and dicing its rental statistics by brand, format and a few other variables. Who’s winning the rental war? The usual suspects. But there are a couple of fun surprises as well.
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While Lensrentals doesn’t share its specific rental numbers (though it does note that every entry in its top twenty list represents thousands of rentals), that doesn’t preclude a ranking. So what wins for the most rented gear of 2023? Not your favorite camera, nor your favorite lens. But maybe your favorite… battery?
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| Image: Lensrentals |
Last year’s roundup, by comparison, didn’t include a ranking of top-rented items by product, but rather shares by product type, where accessories were a distant third to lenses and cameras, respectively.
Also of note, of course, are market shares as calculated by percentage of total rentals. Here, you are in for precious few surprises.
Canon, Sony and Blackmagic stand on the podium for top-rented camera brands, with Sony gaining over the previous year as Canon and Blackmagic slipped. Contain your shock, as that’s exactly the same scenario we saw in 2022.
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| Image: Lensrentals |
Likewise, three top-rented lens brands remain unchanged. Canon, Sony and Sigma took gold, silver, and bronze, same as they did last year. But while Canon and Sigma were both sliding in 2022, Canon has turned it around to see growth in 2023.
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| Image: Lensrentals |
The one category that has seen movement at the top is lens rentals by mount. Sony’s E-mount has taken the crown as Canon’s EF-mount unsurprisingly slides for the second year running as Canon turns its attention to RF-mount, which continues to gain alongside Sony E-mount.
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| Image: Lensrentals |
Last, and frankly least, Lensrentals has also compiled a list of ‘most popular’ photography and videography gear for 2023. But before you feast your eyes, grab hold of a few grains (or even a shaker) of salt. These numbers are calculated by revenue, which gives expensive kit an advantage that renders this basically useless for most analyses. Add to that some classification quirks that have allowed the Sony FX3 to claim slots 13 and 17.
These rankings are perfect, however, for assistance in making whatever case you are already predisposed to argue to your friends or foes.
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| Image: Lensrentals |
You can hop over to Lensrental’s full roundup for additional tidbits and factoids, and snail mail yourself some predictions for 2024 to be opened this time next year.
Our DPREVIEW Tribute:
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview closed on 10 April 2023. This difficult decision was part of the annual operating plan review that parent company, Amazon, shared earlier this year.
Over the course of 25 years, DP Review built up a reputation as being one of the most informative places to go for information about that new camera or lens you’re after. DP Review began as an independent reviews site based in the UK in 1998, the brainchild of Philip and Joanna Askey, but it was eventually purchased by Amazon in 2007 and relocated over to Seattle in the USA in 2010.
Cheers DPReview – thanks for the great work and content that guided photographers, videographers and techno junkies the world over!