In the past, I’ve handed off some words of wisdom about buying a digital SLR cameras to new photographers. Thousands of photos that I’ve taken are on Flickr, with the best being over at my photoblog. I’ve shot events, buildings, people and even the inauguration.

Last year sometime, my friend Micah Baldwin, introduced me to Jared Kohlmann the founder and curator of ProPhotoRental.com. I’ve been a fan since, and have rented all kinds of equipment from him.

Gear rental is important for me for a few reasons. For one, I simply don’t have a lot of budget to go and buy lenses and the ever-illusive Canon 5D Mark II, a $3000 investment that I am nowhere near able to get yet (Hey, Jared… when are you gonna have a Mark II in stock for me to rent?! :)). Though admittedly, Jared gives me a discount on my rentals, even without those discounts, the prices are cheap.

For instance, at SXSW, I made a 7-day rental of the following equipment:

• Canon EOS 5D
• 580 EX-II Speedlight Flash
• EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS telephoto lens
• EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens

The cost of this rental for a week (without discount) is a mere $335. Far less than you would spend at Penn Camera, who, by way of example, would charge $20 a day in addition to a $400 deposit just for the flash!

Clearly, it makes sense to rent often if you’re in the market to buy gear and you want to try it out. A lot of photographers recommend investing the most money in lenses as opposed to going out of the way to upgrade a camera body. Either way, with PPR, you can try out the bodies or a variety of lenses in the Canon, Nikon or Olympus variety. (Who uses Olympus?! That’s like suggesting that Kodak is actually a good camera manufacturer! ;-))

Below, some of the shots taken with PPR gear:

Canon 5D, 70mm, f/2.8, 1600 ISO, 1/160th sec, Flash fired

Canon 5D, 160mm, f/5, 800 ISO, 1/8000th sec, No flash

Canon 5D, 300mm, f/5.6, 200 ISO, 1/320th sec, No Flash