Best & Cheapest place to rent lights in NYC

M

mo sizzle

Active member
hey im looking to rent a couple of soft lights, maybe kino flos or kits with a soft box, for the day. Im wondering if any of you have suggestions on rental houses that have good prices and services. not much of a budget either so any help would be appreciated.

thanks
 
Arri CSC is known to give very good deals to people on a low budget. I got a 4 bank kit (1 2 foot and 1 4 foot unit) plus a bunch of 2x3 frames, nets, and flags, a couple C stands, and a couple apple box families for something really cheap, I think it was under $200 for a 5 day week. For logistical reasons we couldn't return the gear when we were supposed to but they just let it go and didn't charge us for the weekend.
 
Moseph said:
Arri CSC is known to give very good deals to people on a low budget. I got a 4 bank kit (1 2 foot and 1 4 foot unit) plus a bunch of 2x3 frames, nets, and flags, a couple C stands, and a couple apple box families for something really cheap, I think it was under $200 for a 5 day week. For logistical reasons we couldn't return the gear when we were supposed to but they just let it go and didn't charge us for the weekend.
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wow that sounds like a great deal. how did you approach them about getting that deal?
 
I honestly don't know since I didn't deal with them on the phone. I didn't do any of the negotiating. However, I did learn a couple things that can help from this and from another instance renting from them:

In this case, we called them first thing in the morning of the day we needed the equipment. They're such a huge rental house that it's a near guarantee that they'll have what you need, so reserving it long in advance isn't really a necessity. When you call last minute, they're often times open to giving you a break since they'd rather send equipment out and get some money out of it than let it sit there doing nothing. Just make sure you have a quick way of getting insurance, or be ready to pay them the total replacement cost for the gear and have them reimburse you upon return.

The other thing I learned from another time is that they're more willing to give you a break for a decent sized order than on a few small items. They figure that you don't need help if the rental cost as they advertise it is only $50 or so, but when you need a decent amount of gear like we did, this brings the bill up to an amount that they understand some people would have a hard time paying.
 
thanks for the info moseph. j davis, im actually leaning towards adorama as they have pretty reasonable prices and are closer to my shooting location. which kin flo set up would you recommend for a talking head/interview shoot with the option of a green screen? i dont have much experience with them so im not sure what the advantages and differences between the kino flo diva lite and kino flo 2x4 are.
 
mo sizzle said:
im actually leaning towards adorama as they have pretty reasonable prices and are closer
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I only ever rented lights and lenses from adorama but they are the cheapest in town
lights - spark them up and make sure the gear is working before you walk out the door with it.
lenses - I had bad experiences renting lenses from them, go with csi instead
 
Patryk, put some prices up. Or if you will match any price then state it on your page. All too often I'm in an ad agency and I'm pricing a shoot and I can't tell you the number of times we've come across a rental webpage without prices and we just click to the next one.
 
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