I recently rented a camera lens from Borrow Lenses (@BorrowLenses) in San Francisco through their rental-by-mail program. [1] Here’s an overview of the process and my rental experience; for anyone looking to rent photography equipment, and specifically camera lenses, I highly recommend checking out Borrow Lenses.

Overhead, Audubon Park, New Orleans, LA

The above photo was taken with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM lens on my Canon EOS 7D DSLR. The photo doesn’t truly show the beauty of the lens; but moreso, it says nothing about how easy it was to rent this lens from Borrow Lenses.

The process:

• Visit the website, peruse and select a lens. In my case, I selected the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM lens, which I wanted to use for an upcoming shoot.
• Select the length of time you want to rent the lens and select whether or not you want to purchase additional insurance. It’s important to note that if you’re renting by mail, the rental period does not start until the day the lens is delivered, and the end of the rental period is the day you need to mail it back (not the day Borrow Lenses has to receive it). The shipping cost covers receiving and sending the lens, therefore your return shipment is already paid.
• The checkout process is painless. Log in or create a new account, enter your shipping, billing and payment details, and then select a shipping method and a delivery date. The option to select a delivery date is very key: it allows renters to a) reserve lenses far in advance and b) focus on when they need to get the lens, not when they should have lens sent.
• Once the order is placed, you’ll receive an order confirmation email (your receipt), a second order confirmation email with (to confirm that Borrow Lenses has scheduled your order), and then a shipping confirmation email when your order is sent.
• The lens comes in a highly padded non-descript brown box. The unboxing experience makes the rest of the process pretty clear: there is a giant “stop and read this” instruction sheet which details the first things you should do once you receive the lens (check it out, make sure it’s the right lens, that it’s not broken, etc.), and additional sheets which explain in perfect detail how and when to return the lens.
• Shoot, enjoy, be merry; and then be sad, as you have to return the lens. Use the same box, follow the simple instructions, use the requested mailing service, get a receipt to show that you’ve mailed the lens back, and then go home and figure out how you can buy the lens.
• Borrow Lenses sends an email to confirm that the order is complete when they’ve received the lens, and provides two links to public sites (Reseller Ratings and Yelp) to provide feedback.

Borrow Lenses is also very easy to contact and connect with: in addition to their website (which clearly lists their phone number, address and hours of operation), Borrow Lenses is on Twitter (@BorrowLenses) and Facebook, and actively responds to questions in both communities.

In short, if you’re interested in renting equipment for a shoot or for testing a lens before you buy it (I’m trying to decide between the above Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM lens, the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom and the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM ELD SLD Aspherical Super Wide Angle Lens), I highly recommend using Borrow Lenses.

Now I just have to figure out which lens I want to try next :)

[1] Note: I must note that this rental from Borrow Lenses was complimentary. That said, I stand behind my recommendation, the process was easy and Borrow Lenses is a quality, well-known source for photography equipment rentals.
[2] Rental period starts from day of first FedEx delivery attempt, not the day you actually receive it. Since it requires signature for delivery, be sure to send the lens to somewhere that someone can sign for it.

DSLRs = SUVs. Do people really “want” bigger cameras? No, and that’s why the micro 4/3 innovation is important: not as a sign that micro 4/3 is the solution the mass market wants, but that DSLRs aren’t really what the mass market wants, either.

It has been a busy Fauxtokina (a) this year with a raft of camera manufacturers announcing their new digital cameras. Given the strong sales of DSLRs over the past couple years (b), it’s not surprising that most of the attention from manufacturers, retailers and people have been on the high-end of the market. Canon’s 7D, Nikon’s D-whatever and Sony’s A850 are sure to draw a lot of attention (along with Leica’s M9), but a couple cameras based on the micro 4/3 format are drawing a lot of attention: Olympus’s E-PEN 1 and Panasonic’s DMC-GF1.

It’s not just about micro 4/3.
The announcement of these cameras has created a bit of debate about the impact the micro 4/3 standard will have on the industry, but it’s obscured recent innovation in the “pro-sumer point-and-shoot” segment. Ricoh and Sigma have attempted to create point-and-shoot cameras with powerful full-frame sensors and fast lenses with their Caplio GX-100/200 and DP1/DP2 cameras, respectively, but in both cases the manufacturers have been unable to create cameras with the results to match the expectations from the specs.

At the same time, Panasonic has been unable to meet market demand for its DMC-LX3 (b), a point-and-shoot camera that rebelled against the megapixel race and embraced some limitations in its design, allowing it to truly excel at a smaller range of use. Unsurprisingly, Canon recently announced two new cameras (the S90 and the G11) which both appear to embrace some of the lessons from the LX3, breathing some life back into the dream of a “DMD” camera.

What do people really want?
But missing in the conversations is the more meaningful debate: what do people really want?

Does everyone want an SUV?

Does everyone want a DSLR?

DSLR sales have taken off in recent years (c) and while professionals will continue to use DSLRs and more powerful medium-format and still/video camera combinations such as the RED One, more general photographers face a different issue. Most people will trade-off image quality for easier-to-use, more portable cameras that fit better into their lives. Part of the question in their minds is less about getting a camera that is “good enough” or fits their needs, but deeper down it’s really about paying the right amount for what they really want for their lives.

Therefore, for most people, “what they really want for their lives” is not a DSLR.

Will Canon and Nikon change their DSLR strategy?
Panasonic and Olympus understand that micro 4/3 is not intended to compete against DSLRs, and they understand that micro 4/3 is unlikely to be anything more than a second camera for a professional, even if it does offer interchangeable lenses.

It’s understandable why Canon and Nikon have yet to introduce a 4/3 model; “in the digital age, your first and biggest investment should be your lenses”. And as Robert Noble pointed out in his comment, Panasonic, Olympus et. al. had little to lose by adopting the 4/3 standard since they knew that playing Canon’s game was not their best strategy.

Canon and Nikon (and to a different degree, Sony) have used a simple strategy the last couple years: convince people that bigger cameras, more megapixels, more options and more features make us all better photographers, and use DSLR sales to drive sales of lenses and accessories.

But at the same time their DSLR product lines became more complicated. They created smaller target customer segments by cintroducing new camera models based on incremental innovations, but made it harder for people to tease out the differences between their cameras. Confusing naming systems and lists of feature comparisons do not help people understand why they should buy a particular product, but that’s how Canon and Nikon have continued to market and promote their DSLR cameras.

And at the same time, price competition and the increasing pace of new technology has made it more difficult for people to judge when to buy a camera, because it’s becoming increasingly likely that a better, cheaper camera will be released in six months.

Professional photographers and camera geeks are ok with this; they understand the debates, the technology, and can make nuanced trade-offs and decisions about value and price. But the majority of camera buyers are faced with an increasing set of deeply confusing decisions.

In short, not the best business strategy in an age where “delighting people” through “awesomeness” is easier, cheaper and simply better than ever before.

Is 4/3 or micro 4/3 the future? Who knows. But it really doesn’t matter. In a broader sense, at the moment economic returns flow to openness, and by embracing a more open standard, manufacturers using the 4/3 standard are giving themselves the best chance to succeed.

How will people respond? Dreams of careers in photography crushed by the long tail, tired by the physical and digital weight of DSLRs, angered by the pace of DSLR “innovation” and confusing, incremental enhancements and entranced by the small size of micro 4/3 and powerful point-and-shoot cameras, the interest in smaller non-DSLR cameras will return.

Will Canon and Nikon change their DSLR strategy? Unlikely. But we’re already seeing them change their point-and-shoot strategy. The real question is how they will balance their internal organizations and resource allocation to target the different markets. I would love to be a fly on the wall in those discussions.

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(a) “Fauxtokina”, a period of time full of product announcements from camera manufacturers, filling the gap in-between Photokina‘s every-other-year schedule.
(b) Please note my bias; I sold my DSLR a couple months ago and bought a Panasonic DMC-LX3, and am currently considering my next camera purchase, which might indeed be a DSLR. We’ll see…
(c) No, I could not find a reasonable data point to support this, and would love for a bit of help in finding some data about sales by manufacturer and format. But as a proxy, check out the popular cameras on Flickr, or just note how many more people you’ve seen with DSLRs around their necks and in their hands.
(d) Thank you to Sam Bloomberg-Rissman and David Sanger for engaging in a conversation via Twitter that helped me flesh out my idea.
(e) Thank you to Julio Romo and Cian Traynor for indulging my little rant on the subject at Tuttle last week.

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Relevant thoughts:

• Chase Jarvis, Olympus Pen Digital And Maybe A New Way Of Thinking
• Mike Johnston, Why I Love Micro Four-Thirds
• Robert Noble, in a comment to Why I Love Micro Four-Thirds
• British Journal of Photography, Olympus: there’s more to come
• Robert Capps in Wired, The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine
• Mike Masnick, It’s Not The ‘Good Enough’ Revolution; It’s Recognizing What The Consumer Really Wants
• John Hagel, Defining the Big Shift
• Me, “The best camera is the one that’s with you”
• Roger Suppona, The Sigma DP2, a second opinion
• Mike Johnston, ‘DMD’: The Digital Camera I’d Like to Own
• Sam Bloomberg-Rissman, Conversations around the globe

Still Life | Luray, Virginia, USA | Sept 2008

I first saw the BlackRapid R-Strap on David duChemin’s Pixelated Image blog. I had been looking for a better camera strap for awhile (much like my eternal quest for the perfect bag for travel, which may not exist), and after watching the videos and reading the reviews and raves about the R-Strap, I decided to check it out.

I understand that everyone shoots differently using their own particular methods for carrying and using their equipment. But for me, it is spot on: after a couple of months of using it I’ve found it fits the way I shoot and lets me forget about my camera and focus on simply watching, looking, thinking and feeling.

Note: this is not a sponsored post, just a note from a fan…

I usually stay away from photography technology and equipment discussions, but sometimes…

Chase Jarvis: Nikon D90 + Canon 5D + RED: Converging Technologies:

I typically resist predictions, but in this case I’m gonna overstate the simple fact that one day not far from here the two camera types will be indistinguishable, save perhaps their “primary” functions at the highest end of the spectrum (video or stills, respectively). They’ll all be just something like “cameras” or “capture devices”–or as the RED camera peeps are calling it, a DSMC (digital still & motion camera)–and we’ll all know that they can record whatever is going on in front of their lens. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Really worth reading the rest of the post for Chase’s thoughts on why we’re seeing convergence and what it could mean for “image making professional”. My comment:

Perhaps the most important point: “Honestly I think these new iterations of cameras are game changers – perhaps not in their current incarnations, but certainly they are conceptually”

Right now the video in DSLRs is a feature that the manufacturers have had to include to compete and to give customers what they (think) they want.

The real fun comes when we start seeing more convergence and start seeing new ways to use the video / still combination. Build the capabilities and we’ll find new ways to use them.

I’m scared what this means to photographers, but I like what Vincent [Laforet] is doing with the video / multimedia workshops to educate photographers about how to adapt, build skills and position themselves to take full advantage of the new technologies.

What happens when everybody is a videographer? What will photographers do with video?

Are the barriers to creating good video higher than making good images? Are the tools for editing videos harder to learn and use than editing photographs? Is it harder to create, share and consume video than photographs? Right now the answers are yes, yes and yes, but what happens when companies solve those problems and deliver new tools?

What happens when we have more good video and much more bad video out there? Will our standards change?

How will the cameras change how we shoot?

We’ve started to see the evolution of digital video with the low-quality video in point-and-shoot digital cameras, simple dedicated video cameras like the Flip and continued evolution in small digital videocameras. But there is a big difference between the video those devices create compared to the video capabilities of the new DSLRs.

What lessons can we learn from the past? How did the evolution from black & white to color change how we shoot? It’s not just about the color. How did the digital revolution change how we shoot? It’s not simply about the ease in processing digital, the unlimited frames of digital or the romance of film.

The tools we use change us. I’m curious how photographers will change once we all have high-quality video in our hands at the flip of a switch.