The Most Popular Cameras of the Last Two Decades (Nearly)

US rental outfit Lensrentals is celebrating its 19th birthday this month and has dived into the stats to highlight the most rented cameras during those nearly two decades of operation.

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," wrote British author LP Hartley back in 1953, and looking back at 2006 things certainly do look a bit unfamiliar to 2025 eyes. Facebook was scaling and Twitter was launched, though MySpace was still the most popular social media platform, George W Bush and Tony Blair were both in power, the most popular cellphone in the US was the Motorola RAZR, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest dominated the box office, and the Canon 5D was released; a12.7-megapixel full-frame camera that had a body only price of $3299. That's over $5000 in today's prices.

It was a significant camera and even more so when you look at Lensrentals' list of most popular camera rentals over the last 19 years. No, it doesn't make the Top 20 itself. But three of its successors do, which is an impressive feat.

Pic: Lensrentals

“The most popular camera in Lensrentals.com’s history is the Canon 5D Mark III, a camera that we still rent to this day, and you can still buy new on Amazon right now,” Lensrentals writes in an entertaining blog post. “Perhaps that is what truly highlights the groundbreaking nature of the camera — the fact that you can still rent and buy new ones today, despite its debut back in March 2012. Over 13 years later, the Canon 5D Mark III is still being used on sets and for thousands of photoshoots.”

It's a degree of longevity that many other cameras envy. Here's the full Top 20 which is dominated by three manufacturers. 

Canon's 14 entries are an impressive feat. Sony, meanwhile, has 4, and Nikon has 2, with nothing in the Top 10. If you ever shuffle through Lensrentals' yearly data you will occasionally find more nuance there as new models from other manufacturers break though. But diversity is still in fairly short supply. The combined photography and videography gear chart for 2024 is a complete Canon and Sony lock-out.

Given the company name, it's well worth looking at lens rentals over the past 19 years too. Again, there's not much diversity here, though it is worth noting the dominance of the 24-70mm and 70-200mm focal lengths in the list.

Also well worth a read is the company's look at some of the key products over the same period.