who is buying AF100 for rental?

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biginvegas

Well-known member
worldwide who is buying the camera for rental and what you think you will be charging for it as daily rate?

I'm buying for my production company and for rental and keen to see were it sits in the camcorder/DSLR rental guide.
 
I'm not a rental company, and I'll rent my AF100 only to one or two my most trusted friends, but I'll make a guess: There will be so many owner-operators out there with this camera that the rental rate will be very low for skimpily outfitted packages. I can see unsustainable low rates with camera & DP rolled into the rate, more for experience than profit.

"Real" rental houses, will price the camera competitively and make their money on sending out the camera with a much more complete package of lenses, accessories, lighting & grip.

Unless you are in the rental business with established clients and have all the extra items, I wouldn't buy the AF100 with the idea of making a profit on rentals.

That's my guess, but as Yogi Berra said, "predictions are hard, especially about the future."

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Have to agree with Leo. I have a friend who bought a Red package but has never made the kind of money he thought he would renting it out. He typically charges a camera fee to his clients when doing a job. They grumble about it but they pay.

We live in Los Angeles, though. Perhaps if you live in a small non-filmmaking community there could room for profit in dry rental.
 
We expect to price our AF100's(body, no lens), 2)16Gb SD cards, tripod/head, 4)batteries, quad charger, SD card reader for around $250/day. We will offer many cine support options such as SLR and Cine primes/zooms, matte boxes, follow focus, heavier duty fluid heads/tripods, 5.6", 7", 8" and 17" monitors, Letus and Hot Rod Cameras rod support, lens mount adapters, sliders, lighting, grip, audio, and filters. Obviously the camera body is just one item of a package.

edit: Just found a couple of other rental rates at rental houses. Looks like body only pricing is in the $150-195 range so far. So, maybe $225 with fluid head/tripod, batts, cards, charger, reader is where we'll be. The $195 was another California rental facility. I've never liked sending camera out without a fluid head/tripod in the package because some people's ideas of proper camera support can be scary!

It seems to me that if Canon 5D MkII bodies can get $150-185, an AF100 should be able to rent for more.
 
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I'm getting the AF100 for myself to shoot a feature early next year. I won't rent it out without me being present on the set as DP, AC, or camera op.
 
I'll be charging $350 to $400 per day depending on what lenses are used, that'll include rails follow focus, cards, laptop. that said, I only rent when I go with the camera.

I'm basing that off the standard $350 for an ex1 kit, which is valued similarly.
 
Rental is in South Africa so my market is specific to the 5D filmmaker crowd.
Panasonic highly erratic with all products here and M-4/3 barely a blip on the consumer and pro radar (with exception of high end camcorders) and sales so might be a tough rental sell considering everyone owns a 5 or 7D.
I will be renting with rails, RR FF, cards, tripod, Mattebox, RR shoulder mount's, Hot Rod tuner PL kit and/or 14-140mm, 20mm 1.7 in different categories from Indie filmmaker to commercials producer. $350-$500 daily depending on category. Clients will have to rent PL primes elsewhere for the time being.

As for renting to the ENG guys my thinking is the AF100 is more versatile than the Varicam which rents for over $700 a day down here so will adjust to what the producer is willing to pay.
 
Something else to bear in mind with published rental rates is that they are frequently discounted. Getting a "real" $150.00 a day rate for an AF100 body will be increasingly difficult as deliveries accelerate. I would be surprised if the actual rate for a bare body does not drop to the $50.00 neighborhood, or even "free" with the owner's day rate. The rental profit will be made from accessories, glass, and labor.

As was mentioned, the same over-supply pressure pushed down Red camera rental rates and undoubtedly there will be many, many more AF100s than Reds.

If you want to make money with your AF100, best to have a complete package with the backups a real rental house offers, or sell your ability to shoot beautiful pictures with it.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
I am a rental/production company in Houston, Texas and will be renting the base package out for $375/day, and will offer 20mm 1.7 pancake, Leica 14-50 2.8, and Zeiss 50mm 1.4, and kit lens. I have a Hotrod PL mount if the clients have their own PL lenses. And will be getting all the adapters for all those Canon and Nikon users with full sets of their own lenses. I rent to the local DP's, and to anyone with their own rental insurance, and I cross-rent to other rental houses in town (very few left) and there is great interest in this camera. I suspect I'll have two bodies shortly. Then I'll wait and see what's next with the other manufacturers.
 
To everyone buying an AF100 please don't let it out of your sight for anywhere below 200$ I know it's tempting when you don't have lots of connections to try to undercut all other prices to get some rentals but the truth is there's going to be a lot of people in the same situation and its a never-ending game. It's the reason I've seen Red packages in FL advertised at 400$ with owner as DIT. That's absurd. I think the 5% guideline is pretty much where most things should live, so if you bought your Af100 for around 5.000$ then the body alone should rent for 250$. Besides anyone who is renting your gear for 50$ is probably not going to treat it with respect.
 
waefre said:
I think the 5% guideline is pretty much where most things should live, so if you bought your Af100 for around 5.000$ then the body alone should rent for 250$.
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I don't know the standards in other countries, but in the US the standard is 1%. There is often a premium for low-supply, high-demand gear, but I doubt low-supply will be a factor with the AF100. There may be some sort of baseline cost added to the total cost of a low-rate rental item, but I don't believe anyone is going to get $250.00 a day for an AF100 body.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Leo, while I know that LA/NY markets can be over saturated with rental resources(as well as crew resources) and that it seems like everybody on set owns a RED One or 5D, including the caterer, in the SF Bay Area, Panasonic palmcorders have held the line for years--starting with the DVX100. Obviously we don't know what special deals or weekend rates occur, but the HVX200's, 200A's, 170's, EX1's and EX3's I'm aware of, that are available for rental, don't go out for under $200. There's always an exception to the rule, but if a camera body is available under market price, it usually means the support equipment available is lacking, requiring the client to make several stops to assemble a shoot ready camera package.

The 1% rule has never worked with low cost gear--a $1000 wireless mic. system doesn't rent for $10, it rents for $50, or 5%. Same holds true for a palmcorder, an HD LCD monitor.
 
50$ is nowhere near a reasonable number. At that rate the only way you'll ever make your money back is through an insurance claim after someone drops it. HVX200s which are 5 years old still rent for 200$ and up in FL so expecting the same for a brand new camera with cutting edge technology is not so much to ask.
 
http://www.abelcine.com/store/Panasonic-Lumix-GH-1-Hot-Rod-Deluxe-PL-Mount-Adapter-Kit/

Abelcine NyC rents the GH1 with Hot rod Pl for $300 a day. A $600 body with a $1400 PL kit. it must rent occasionally as B cam, crash cam etc otherwise AbelC would not advertise. the varicam 2700 has a quoted price of $900 a day...

yes its the biggest rental facility on the east coast but from caracas to cape town, the rate should reflect the versatility of the camera. in my experience as a producer, $400-800 for a package is still an amazing deal for this technology.
 
waefre said:
50$ is nowhere near a reasonable number. At that rate the only way you'll ever make your money back is through an insurance claim after someone drops it. HVX200s which are 5 years old still rent for 200$ and up in FL so expecting the same for a brand new camera with cutting edge technology is not so much to ask.
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Actually, I agree with Timur completely... at least here in the Los Angeles area. The market is going to be saturated with these cameras, just like it is now with Red One, 7D, and 5Dmk2. You can get any of those pretty much for free these days just by hiring the owner on as crew because there's so many of them.

I'm going to use my equipment to get me more work, including it in my day-rate and not having the option to rent the equipment without me being there. If they don't want me to be the DP, that's fine, but I still have to be there as AC. Otherwise I have no interest or desire to rent it out. And there's a lot of people here working like that.
 
biginvegas said:
it must rent occasionally as B cam, crash cam etc otherwise AbelC would not advertise.
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Many a business has gone out of business by making assumptions like this about competitors. "They are doing it, so it must be profitable/practical/smart".
 
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We rented the GH1 with the HotRod adapter pretty frequently early last year. That dropped off after we started renting the Canon HDSLRs. We rented the camera because our clients asked for it and we made money on it, but most of that money is from lens and accessory rental. The actual rental rate of the camera can vary from the online list price of course. For some kits we rented I'm sure it was a throw in.

Abel will get a couple AF100s in rental (LA & NY) pretty soon. I don't know what the rental rate will be yet.
 
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