Make it or break it: Lensrental shares its annual gear repair rate report

As they do every year, LensRentals has released their annual repair rate report.

Within the detailed analysis are the numbers showing what photo gear comes in most often for replacement within a 24 month lifespan in the rental rotation.

Unfortunately, the numbers aren’t as straightforward as you might’ve hoped. Rather than relying on percentages of gear that goes out and returns to the LensRentals office, they’ve created their own ‘Repair Score’ which divides the predicted rate of repair by the actual rate of repair, based on a curve.

This means that any score higher than 1.0 denotes that the actual repair rate is less than what was predicted. Scores lower than 1.0 mean the repair rate is higher than anticipated.

Another downfall of this pseudo-simplified system is that it doesn’t take into account a handful of factors, such as how complicated the particular piece of equipment is or what the cause of the repair is.

In fact, in speaking to PDN Pulse, LensRentals said:

When a customer reports an issue with a piece of equipment, it is always sent to the repair department for a thorough check […] It could simply be a case of user error, or the customer’s equipment that is actually in need of repair.

This means that something as insignificant as a slight scratch on the barrel could be sent in for repair and count towards the numbers. As a result, these numbers shouldn’t be taken as a direct correlation to poor build quality or defective products.

One of the most interesting numbers from the analysis is how much of a difference there is between the ‘Repair Score’ of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. Take a look at the numbers for yourself, below:

Camera Bodies
DSLR: 1.14
Mirrorless: .79

DSLR Brands
Canon 1.1
Nikon: .95
Sony .8

Mirrorless Camera Brands
Fuji 1.28
Sony 1
Olympus .97
Panasonic .92
Leica .92

DSLR Zoom Lenses
Canon 1.18
Tokina 1.11
Nikon 1.12
Sony 0.95
Sigma 0.90
Tamron 0.71

DSLR Prime Lenses
Zeiss 1.20
Canon 1.08
Sigma 0.90
Nikon 0.85
Sony 0.83
Pentax 0.59
Rokinon 0.53

Mirrorless Zoom
Olympus 1.25
Sony 1.06
Panasonic 1.05
Fuji 0.92

Mirrorless Primes
Panasonic 1.57
Sony 1.26
Olympus 1.14
Voigtlander 0.99
Zeiss 0.93
Fuji 0.77
Leica 0.69

Zoom Types
Wide Angle 1.31
Normal 1.09
Telephoto 1.07
Supertele 0.68

[via PDN Pulse]