This is the most coveted photography gear of the year – and it’s dominated by these two brands

The end of the year always brings a slew of different data on the photography industry, but one report in particular that I look for every year is here: the most rented gear of 2025, according to US rental giant LensRentals.

I like to refer to the LensRentals annual report as the list of gear photographers want but can’t afford to buy. After all, rentals are often used to get cost-prohibitive gear for big shoots, or even as a sort of try-before-you-buy. It may not be 100% a wish list, as rental costs are based on the camera cost, but I'd like to think it's close enough.

Looking at LensRental’s top gear of 2025, a few key trends emerge – starting with the camera brands. Like with the two previous years, Canon leads the market share by rental revenue at 26.51%, followed closely by Sony at 21.66%.

There is a much larger gap between second and third ranking brands, with Nikon coming in at 5.56%, followed by DJI at 4.29%, Blackmagic at 3.15%, Sigma at 3.13% and Fujifilm at 2.79%.

Those statistics are based on revenue, however, which means that more expensive gear and more expensive brands have a bit of an advantage. But looking at the numbers broken down by rentals, not revenue, Canon and Sony are still very clearly top contenders.

LensRentals breaks down all rentals in 2025 by the number of rentals together into one list. Because these are based on numbers, they tend to skew towards some small accessories, as some renters may want more than one battery or more than one memory card in their order. But the list is interesting regardless:

The company also breaks down the numbers by category. The top camera rentals in 2025 were:

Looking at the top camera rentals for 2025, the only top 10 camera from a brand besides Canon and Sony is the GoPro Hero 13 Black in tenth. Nikon doesn’t pop up until spot 17 with the Z8, just behind the trendy DJI Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal camera.

Fujifilm doesn’t make the top 20 at all – which is a bit surprising, considering several models have sold well enough to be frequently out of stock. Also absent from the top 20 camera rentals are brands like OM System, Panasonic and Leica.

Three of the top three camera rentals of the year have just been replaced at the very end of 2025: the Canon EOS R6 Mark III to replace the R6 Mark II, and the Sony A7 Mark V, which is the successor to but doesn’t kill the Sony A7 IV. It will be interesting to see how those launches play with the numbers next year.

But, the list doesn’t exclusively focus on the newest gear, as the original R6 is on the list along with the A7 III. And speaking of not being exclusive to new gear, there’s still a DSLR on the list: the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, which was also on the 2024 list.

LensRental’s annual list is often dominated by Canon and Sony, however, so the list may not exactly come as a surprise. The list is predominantly mirrorless, along with a scattering of cinema cameras, an action camera, the category-defying Osmo Pocket 3 and, of course, the 5D Mark IV DSLR.

Turning to lenses – which, after all, is right in the name – and another clear trend emerges. The list is heavily dominated by zooms, largely workhorses like the 24-70 and 70-200mm f/2.8 optics. Just two primes pop up on the list, the Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L and the RF 85mm f/1.2L.

Canon’s slightly unusual workhorse that shifts to a 28-70mm for a brighter f/2 aperture follows close behind the more standard focal length first generation, with the brand’s 70-200mm following close behind that, and the second generation 24-70mm after that. Sony’s workhorse lenses similarly pop up in the top rentals.

It computes, then, that the only non-Canon and non-Sony on the most rented lens is also a workhorse: the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DG DN II Art in Sony E Mount.

While the top cameras and top lenses contain gear from a wide enough time period to also include a DLSR, LensRentals also compiled data to look strictly at the products launched in 2025:

That’s an eclectic mix of products, including a tripod in the top spot and a light in the third place spot. I find it a bit curious that the new Sony 50-150mm f/2 GM earned the second spot on the new gear list, but didn’t pop into the top lens rentals – but then again, the new products didn’t have a full 12 months of rentals in the dataset either.

The LensRentals data comes in the onslaught of year-end statistics, but it’s interesting to look at the most popular gear in terms of rentals and how that’s different from purchases. The list of the most popular lenses at B&H for 2025, for example, doesn’t have any overlap with the LensRentals list, highlighting the very different intent between buyers and renters.

Browse the full report at LensRentals.

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