Question on renting out our HPX170...

[45 East]

My husband recently purchased a new HPX170. He takes excellent care of his equipment and it is in mint condition.

We have both thought that we should rent out the camera to make some profit on the side and it could pay for itself. The question is: how do we do that? Where do we purchase camera insurance, liability, etc? Do we need to get a business license first if we are going to rent it out? what else do we need to do?

I can easily check prices and come up with our pricing and packages (P2 cards, extra lenses, Pelican, etc.) , but I've been looking for insurance coverage and I'm not getting the right answers.

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated. We live in Southern California.

Thank you.

[Cheesesailor77]

you definitely need insurance, not sure how best to get it though. My father added my gear to his plan covering his business gear, so I unfortunately don't know a whole lot about it.

The rule of thumb is 2% of retail value. Maybe more for gear that's in demand or specialized. And remember, renters that pick up the gear on friday get saturday and sunday free :)

[Kit Hannah]

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The rule of thumb is 2% of retail value. Maybe more for gear that's in demand or specialized.

Cheese, I gotta jump in here - usually you're spot on about things, but...

2% is way to low. You don't want to have to rent your camera 50 times to pay for it. 5-10% of value is more realistic. so on a $5000 investment, $250-$500 per day is more like it. Also depends what accessories you have with it, etc.

Renting gear out is fine, but you have some worries...

1. People not bringing it back.
2. People breaking it.
3. People mistreating and abusing it cause it's a rental.

I owned a rental house and production company for a long time. Rented sound & lighting equipment, but we could never bring ourselves to rent out video because of the delicacy and expense. Be very careful who you rent it to. I would collect a deposit if possible.

[Terry_Lasater]

My opinion is to invest your time and energy into developing clients and finding gigs and forget the notion of renting. :)

[Mike Harvey]

...Renting gear out is fine, but you have some worries...

1. People not bringing it back.
2. People breaking it.
3. People mistreating and abusing it cause it's a rental.

I owned a rental house and production company for a long time. Rented sound & lighting equipment, but we could never bring ourselves to rent out video because of the delicacy and expense. Be very careful who you rent it to. I would collect a deposit if possible.

I agree... I've been toying with renting out some of my gear on the side, and am thinking that I'm either going to require either the renter have insurance, or a deposit for most, if not all, of the replacement value. I know a couple of rental houses around here do that for their lower end gear.

[mdslammer]

My opinion is to invest your time and energy into developing clients and finding gigs and forget the notion of renting. :)

I totally agree with Terry. NEVER loan or rent out your equipment you depend on
for employment. Period.

[Cheesesailor77]

My opinion is to invest your time and energy into developing clients and finding gigs and forget the notion of renting. :)

i would agree with this as well. I personally would never rent my gear out and not do with it myself. I always go with my gear as DP or DIT.