My recent order of three lenses didn't ship with any of the ones I rented. First, a lens they received back from a customer was broken and thus out of stock, so I didn't get the Canon 50 f1.2 like I wanted. A customer rep spoke with me and per my suggestion he replaced this lens with the Canon 24 f1.4. Second, I had ordered a Canon fisheye, but for some reason I received another call a few days later saying they were out of stock. Why was I able to order the lens then? They replaced this lens by purchasing a new Sigma Fisheye from B&H for me. Lastly, after all this commotion, I open my package and find they sent me the more expensive Canon 70-200 IS f2.8. That wasn't such a bad thing, however until I checked my "new invoice" which was higher then what I had ordered. I can understand things happen and get mixed up, but this was beyond me. The difference was refunded to my account. My previous order never sent me a shipping invoice so I had to email them to find out what was going on. Turns out they didn't receive their lens and I was likely to not get my order in time. They corrected this by over nighting the order. I am disappointed that my 2 last rentals have not gone well. I am glad they offer this service but not happy with things lately. Best bet is to save your money and invest in your own lens. Thanks for the good rentals before these past two, I'm not sure all this hassle is worth it though.

This review was modified by its author, jeffreysimms, on 6/15/09 5:05 PM.

Both times I ordered from this rental, I requested a local pick up in San Jose, and both times they did not come through on their promise and had lenses ready for pick in San Jose, even though I reserved lenses weeks in advance each time, and I had to drive to San Mateo during my business hours to pick them up. It really is not my problem that someone else turned lenses late. They also could have fixed things and drove them down to San Jose on a day of pick, but apparently their time is more valuable than mine, and they refused to drive down, thus forcing me to rearrange my schedule for the day.  
 
I gave them the second chance, but the exact same thing happened again. The variety of lenses is good, but what's the use if that's how they treated me both times?  
 
Keep that in mind if you ever consider a local rental. Their out-of-town customers are clearly more important.

This review was modified by its author, ivanomak, on 5/5/09 6:09 PM.

To be honest, 2 of the 3 times I've rented from this place, I've had issues. The first time I rented a lens and 2 White Lightning Strobes and all was well. Everyone was friendly and my rentals were in good working order. The next two orders, however, weren't as smooth as I'd hoped. On my recent order, I rented a lens and the Alienbees Ringflash. Unfortunately they don't maintain this particular piece of equipment all that well. Granted, it's not really a rental-grade piece of gear, but if you're going to rent it, it should be maintained. My main issues were that the lock to keep the reflector pieces on was broken, so the reflector could come off more easily while you're shooting. Also, this unit comes with a specially angled power cord that doesn't interfere with the camera as much, but they didn't send that this time. This time, the flash was sent with a straight cord, which made it interesting to mount a camera to the ring flash. The other thing I was disappointed about was the travel bag. The first time I rented this, it came in a travel bag, which is awesome because I shoot on location 85% of the time. This time, however, there was no travel bag, so I had to bring this to the location in the padded box they shipped it in, which needless to say, wasn't convenient.  
 
On a previous order, I rented a lens and a bunch of lighting gear. Good points on that experience for them purchasing a brand new lens to fulfill my rental. Bad points because they confirmed a lens they didn't have it stock, and confirmed a softbox that turned out to be broken so it wasn't rentable. They didn't notify me of this until I was there to pick up the gear, which was disheartening. The associate mentioned they had a perfectly usable profoto softbox, but said I would have to pay extra to rent it and the strobe it mounted to. This, in my eyes, is really poor service, as they already confirmed a similar piece of gear that turned out to be broken, and gave me no notice that it wouldn't be available. On this same trip, they also forgot to include lighting grids I rented, so I had to go back and get them.  
 
Overall, these folks have been friendly and pretty easy to deal with. Unfortunately though, it seems like they're a little too laid back when it comes to checking the details, which isn't awesome, when you're relying on their gear for a job.  
 
Lastly, their shipping is pretty high compared to their competitors. I paid $48 for 2-day shipping on my last rental, and they ended up shipping it ground because I'm in the area. Did they credit the difference? Of course not.  
 
In cases where I'm renting gear that no other mail-order rental house carries, I'll continue to rent from them, with mild trepidation. In cases where the gear I'm looking for is available from other rental houses, I'll sadly be renting from them. While I want to support a business that is local to me, I can't do that if I can't depend on them 100% of the time.  
 

Generally good, but I had made a reservation for a lens about 2 months before a trip to Hawaii, and they told me the day before that the lens was not available. Very disappointing. I understand that it's a problem when people don't return things on time, but they shouldn't schedule so tightly that it wouldn't be available at all for the next customer. Be warned! Check and double check. Don't assume that it will be there.

I have rented from numerous companies in the Bay Area and I have never had a problem with equipment returns and rentals. If you have a moment before you rent from Borrow Lenses to read my issue and problem that I had with them. Please do. And if you still rent from them check and inspect their lenses and make sure they supply you with a lens filter to protect yourself.  
 
due to character limits I shortened the story  
 
I rented a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II from them on Aug 29, 2007, for a vacation I was taking to Los Angeles. I own a Canon 5d and Canon Rebel XT along with a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L and a 70-200mm f4L lens. I rented the lens with intent to use it as a walk around lens for my Rebel XT. I met one of the owners at a Starbucks location that was on their list to meet at. I received the lens and I did a brief check of the lens and it looked fine to me and it was packaged in its original box with no lens filter on the lens. It didn’t occur to me that the lens had no lens filter to protect the lens because I was boarding the plane that day and I was already charged $60 when I reserved the lens 3 days prior to meeting up. After noticing that it was no lens cap when I was at the airport, I didn’t use the lens as much on my trip and took an average of 10 shots with it. Because of this, I kept it in my camera bag during traveling or on the camera with the front cap on. On return from my trip I met them at the Starbucks at around 7:30pm. I gave them the lens personally and he checked it out said it was ok but told me he will check it at home for any problems and will let me know if there is a problem with the lens but he said he didn’t see any. Later that night I get an email sent to me at around 1:15am in the morning (6hrs later) saying that he found a damaged front element on the lens and my account was going to be charged $300 and I needed to contact them immediately. I emailed them back immediately and wanted to see the picture of the lens and to put the charge on another card before charging my account. They had already made the charge on my account before receiving my response. Although it was an authorization those funds weren’t able to be used because of this. On their rental agreement and site it says under damage, “We will charge you exactly what the repair shop charges us, and can provide you with a copy of the receipt at your request.” I did not receive a receipt and was charged full price of an assumption of what the cost to replace the lens before the lens was sent out for repairs.  
 
I called Borrow Lenses in the morning left a message and received a call later. They told me it was a noticeable scratch on the lens but there weren’t any problems with the lens or quality of it, or with the functions of the lens. They also mentioned that at first they were going to overlook this scratch and move ahead but they felt something needed to be done. I told them at no point I kept the lens without the lens cap on the camera and I didn’t scratch the lens. They said the lens was new and I was the second person that had used the lens since it was bought. My second question to borrowlenses was why did I receive an email 6hrs later after I hand delivered the lens and gave the lens to them personally and I was told that it looked fine and that there wasn't an issue with the lens when I dropped it off? (their site suggests 3hr time frame for shipped rentals to them) They told me they had other things to tend to, and didn’t have time to check it until later that evening after performing test shots and using cleaning solutions to clean the lens. My next question was is if you’re running a business and these lenses are your products you would check and inspect each lens that you get no matter when you received it and get back to the customer in a timely manner? They acknowledged they made a mistake. I also asked how come the lens wasn’t provided with a filter to protect the lens? They said they have those for rent, and it’s an option that customer can purchase. Most rental companies if not all and photographers put cheap filters on their lenses to protect their lenses (and after I mentioned putting filters on the lenses BorrowLenses is now considering putting filters on all of their rental lenses).  
 
The lens was sent out to Canon for repairs, and four days later I get a call from Borrowlenses saying the lens replacement was $563 total, more than what we both expected. I was charged for loss of rental, which was 1 week that they weren’t able to rent the lens out. I was going to be charged for 2 weeks but they felt that they didn’t need to charge me for that extra week.  
 
The reason why I was dissatisfied with the service is because they charged me before contacting me. How long it took for them to find the noticeable size scratch and to contact me. On their site and rental agreement their isn’t any information on what happens if their are damages when you drop the lens off in person and what is the turn around time to contact the customer. I would have felt satisfied with their service if they covered half for the price of the damage of the lens because they admitted to some negligence on the rental of the lens. The lens is fixed but my relationship with BorrowLenses is over and I wouldn’t recommend their service to any one and will not rent from them ever. This whole ordeal was stressful and a pain because even though they want to provide great customer service I felt, I didn’t receive it. Thank you for taking the time to read this and educate others who may think about renting from them. Don’t let this happen to you.  

This review was modified by its author, johnniem2nd, on 10/11/07 8:17 PM.

There was a little hiccup on my first order with Borrowlenses for something that inadvertently happened in their back-end. For an important function, I was given a replacement lens that I didn't want. However, after contacting and talking to the fine people at BorrowLenses, they stepped up over and above and helped me out on the next rental. I would definitely use this service again in the future!

5D Mk II was in excellent condition and ready to shoot with everything working properly. I will definitely rent from them again.  
 
Some suggestions:  
- Noticeable dirt on the sensor when I received it -- would have liked it to be cleaner  
- One battery was almost drained and the other was about 50% capacity. Would be nice to have the batteries charged up, especially if using it over the weekend and I have to pick it up on Friday after work and I need it that night.

This was my first rental with Borrow Lenses and everything went extremely smoothly. They had recently received Canon's new TS-E 17mm lens and I needed one for a shoot. They included the user's guide for the lens as this model was brand new and different from Canon's previous tilt/shift.  
The return shipping was easy and convenient. To make a great company even better I'd recommend Borrow Lenses consider when the rental begins. I received the lens late in the day after FedEx delivered it and that counted as Day 1. Additionally, the last day is also the shipping day so it squeezes the time one really has with the rental. Just a consideration.  
I'd recommend Borrow Lenses to anyone looking for a rental.

The experience I had with BorrowLenses.com started off well. The order was placed successfully for a future delivery date. The order was to be sent two day. I awaited my shipping confirmation number to arrive telling me it was shipped, but I never received it. I called the next day (the day before I was to receive the shipment) and found out there was a problem processing my credit card. They didn't call me to tell me this. Fortunately they shipped the product the day before even though I had a problematic credit card. It was great they trusted me to provide a good card after shipment. So after some confusion, they were able to send me the shipping information. After reviewing that, I noticed that the package was sent Ground instead of two day. So I wasn't to receive it until about 3 days after I needed it. BorrowLenses.com took quick interest in this problem and were willing to do everything possible to be sure I had the equipment I needed in time. Turned out FedEx made a mistake. Somehow they managed to still deliver the package on the second day when I needed it. Whatever happened in this situation, BorrowLenses was great at helping me figure out options should my delivery not make it in time. And they were willing to go out and purchase new products in order to send it to me in time if it were to come to that.  
 
All that said, I'm willing to try them out again, but I'll be especially cautious. From other reviews, it looks like most orders are more successful, so this might have just been an uncommon occurrence.

Excellent service, quick shipping and customer service. Pricing is very competitive and will use again!

I love the pricing... Although i did not like that i was called the day before i was to pick up my order and told that they did not have the ring flash... so they tried accommodating me with an external flash. Over All I like the pricing so i will continue to use borrowlenses.com

The whole service is great and a life saver. I highly recommend it. I'd only request two changes for future reference:  
 
(1) Have the equipment readily available. When I arrived, they said they didn't have it, so I had to call the main office. They said it was delivered. It was dropped of at somewhere else, and they hadn't delivered it to the store yet, so I had to wait for them to drive it over.  
 
(2) Have the equipment packaged better. I didn't bring a bag with me, and it was delivered in a plastic bag. I was worried I'd damage it.  
 
Everything else is great!

I rented a Canon tilt/shift lens. It was in excellent condition and performed perfectly. My 1 week rental started on 4/21, and I returned it on 4/28 as specified when I picked it up. On 5/4 I received an email stating that my bill was increased by $11.75 because I returned the lens a day late. My query about it was unanswered.

I have rented lenses from them several times and the service has always been exceptional. Unfortunately, this time the lens they sent did not have the correct lens cap and the one they sent keep slipping off. Other than that they did a good order and I will probably continue to use their service.

I have no problem with the equipment. It arrived in good condition and did what it needed to.  
 
However, this company really needs a dose of professionalism. Notes that I wrote on the bottom of my order were not followed, nor were they even acknowledged to say "no we don't do that."  
 
Also the packaging really needs an upgrade. Taping a box over and over again smacks of "garage business" vs. professional business. Some reusable plastic boxes with custom cut foam would go a long way to make me feel like I could trust the company to be around long-term.