Film crew hire/Birmingham/Kit rental
Film equipment hire in Birmingham. Kit houses, day rates, and the crew’s own kit.
Birmingham’s kit hire sits round the edge of the city, not in the middle of it: the longest published list is behind Hall 3 at the NEC, with Wex Rental’s collection point on Hagley Road and smaller houses in Castle Vale and out at Earlswood. Here’s who’s where, what they publish, what a first hire asks of you, and when we book the kit with the crew instead.
Sony FX6 · per day
£145–160
ARRI Alexa 35 · per day
£1,100
Damage waiver
10–15%, or your own cover
Clean Air Zone · older van
£8 a day
On this page
01 Wet hire or dry hire
Two ways to get kit: from a kit house, or with the crew
Dry hire means you rent the kit and run it yourself. Wet hire means it comes with the person who operates it. Most shoots we crew use a mix of the two.
Dry hire
From a kit house
Who owns it
The kit house: Media Dog Hire at the NEC, Wex Rental (collected on Hagley Road), Spaghetti Studios at Earlswood
How it’s priced
A day rate per item, plus VAT. Wex adds a 10% damage waiver unless your own policy covers hired kit; Media Dog and Spaghetti want your own insurance. Wex charges a week as four days
Getting it there
Collected the afternoon before (from 2pm at Media Dog, 4pm at Wex) and back by 11am or 10am after the shoot
Who knows it best
Whoever operates it, if they’ve used that model before
Best for
A specific camera, cine primes or anamorphics, HMIs, a dolly
Wet hire
With the crew’s kit
Who owns it
The DOP, camera operator, sound recordist or gaffer you’re booking
How it’s priced
A kit fee on its own line of the quote, apart from the day rate. Our 10% booking fee and 2% insurance go on it, as on everything we book
Getting it there
It arrives with the operator at call time, prepped and charged, whether they live in Birmingham or travel in
Who knows it best
The person who owns it, maintains it and uses it every week
Best for
Interview and conference days in offices on Colmore Row, at the ICC or the NEC: FX6s, radio mics, LED panels, a gaffer’s van
How we book it
For AlTi Tiedemann Global’s fireside chat in London in March 2026, the cameras came dry from a London kit house, the lighting came on the gaffer’s van, and the sound recordist brought their own kit. On an interview day, wet hire is often the better deal: the kit is already paid for, prepped and insured, so the fee carries no waiver and nobody drives out to the NEC to collect it. When a sound recordist or gaffer travels in from Manchester or London for a Birmingham shoot, their kit travels with them, with the mileage on the quote. Dry hire wins when the job calls for something specific, and then the crew run what we hire. Either way, kit sits on its own line of the quote.
02 Day rates
Camera and kit hire prices in Birmingham
Published dry-hire rates from three houses that rent in and around Birmingham, per day, before VAT and any damage waiver. Checked October 2026.
| Item | Per day | Listed by |
|---|---|---|
| Sony FX3 | £75–120 | Photo Video Kit Hire (with cage and cards), Wex Rental, Media Dog Hire |
| Sony A7S III | £85–110 | Wex Rental, Media Dog Hire |
| Canon C70 | £95–145 | Wex Rental, Media Dog Hire |
| Sony FX6 | £145–160 | Wex Rental, Media Dog Hire |
| Sony FX9 | £180 | Media Dog Hire |
| RED Komodo 6K | £225 | Media Dog Hire |
| DJI Ronin 4D (6K) | £595 | Media Dog Hire |
| Sony Venice 6K, with R7 recorder | £850 | Media Dog Hire |
| ARRI Alexa Mini LF | £850 | Media Dog Hire |
| ARRI Alexa 35 | £1,100 | Media Dog Hire |
| Cine prime sets | £150–625 | Media Dog Hire: Samyang XEEN to Zeiss Supreme, with a five-lens Cooke S4/i set at £450 |
| Aputure LS 600d Pro | £80–95 | Wex Rental, Media Dog Hire |
| Aputure LS 1200d | £145–155 | Wex Rental, Media Dog Hire |
| ARRI SkyPanel S60-C | £145–150 | Wex Rental (as a kit), Media Dog Hire |
| ARRI 1.2K HMI | £125 | Media Dog Hire |
| Sennheiser MKH 416 | £30–38 | Media Dog Hire (with boom housing), Wex Rental (as a kit) |
| Radio mic kit (Sennheiser G4) | £25 | Media Dog Hire |
| Sound Devices 633 mixer-recorder | £45 | Media Dog Hire |
| Dana Dolly | £100 | Media Dog Hire |
What moves the number
The week
Wex charges seven days as four, and 10 to 14 days as seven. Photo Video Kit Hire prices a week at about three days. Media Dog quotes long hires on request, so ask: on a four-day shoot in the City of London and Uxbridge in September 2025, a three-day deal on four days of kit hire saved about £4,700.
The weekend
Collect from Wex on Hagley Road any time on Friday, return by 10am on Monday, and it’s charged as one day, or two if Wex ships it. Photo Video Kit Hire charges Friday to Monday as two days. Media Dog opens on weekdays only.
The waiver
Wex’s damage waiver is 10% of the hire and covers accidental damage, not negligence; you pay the first £250 of a claim, and it’s compulsory unless your own policy covers hired kit. Photo Video Kit Hire’s optional cover is 15%, with an excess. Media Dog and Spaghetti Studios don’t offer one: they want your own insurance for the full replacement value.
The hire day
Media Dog’s runs from 2pm on the day you collect to 11am on the day it comes back. Wex releases kit from 4pm the day before and wants it back by 10am on the last day. Photo Video Kit Hire counts calendar dates and takes returns between 9am and 11am.
03 Who to call
Birmingham’s kit houses, out of the centre
The longest list is on the NEC campus by the airport; Wex Rental hands over kit on Hagley Road, and the others are in Castle Vale, in Hockley and at Earlswood, none of them in the city centre itself. Every house below was checked on its own site in October 2026.
At the NEC
The NEC · Exhibition Way, B40 1PJ
Media Dog Hire
Camera, lenses, lighting, grip and sound, from the ARRI Alexa 35 and Sony Venice down to FX3s and Ronin 4Ds, with HMIs, Astera tubes, dollies, jibs and timecode. Day rates are online, item by item. It also has offices in Manchester and Glasgow, and delivers across the UK.
Around the city
Edgbaston · 100 Hagley Road, B16 8LT
Wex Rental
Wex Photo Video’s Hagley Road store is a collection and drop-off point for Wex Rental: FX-series and mirrorless cameras, lenses, Aputure LEDs and SkyPanels, sound kits and grip. You book through Wex’s rental team in London and the kit ships from its Whitechapel depot, so allow two working days.
Castle Vale · Park Lane, B35 6LJ, near the M6
Photo Video Kit Hire
Sony FX3 and Canon mirrorless bodies with GM and L-series zooms, cages, batteries and cards, for videographers and small crews. An FX3 is £75 a day with its cage and cards.
Earlswood · Forshaw Heath Road, B94 5JX
Spaghetti Studios
A studio with its own hire floor: cameras from the FX3 to the Alexa 35, Burano and RED V-Raptor; lighting from Astera tubes and SkyPanels up to ARRI M90 and ARRIMAX 18/12 HMIs, Creamsource Vortex 8s and 5K tungsten; grip and monitoring. Hired with or without crew, and delivered nationwide.
Hockley Port · All Saints’ Street, B18 7RL
Birmingham Film Studio
A blacked-out studio in Hockley that also hires out lighting, staging, set furniture and an LED video wall, with its partner Marklew Productions.
Out of date
Older Birmingham kit lists still send people to Fat Llama and Wedio. Fat Llama now redirects to Hygglo, and both are peer-to-peer platforms, renting kit from individuals, not rental houses. Spaghetti Studios appears on older lists as Spaghetti Hire, and Wex has no rental counter in Birmingham: the Hagley Road store hands over kit booked through London.
04 By department
What’s in stock in Birmingham, by department
What the Birmingham houses list today, what comes up from London, and what we’d usually reach for on a brand or corporate shoot.
Cameras
ARRI Alexa 35, Mini LF, Mini and Amira, Sony Venice, FX9, FX6 and FX3, RED Komodo and the Ronin 4D at Media Dog; Burano and RED V-Raptor at Spaghetti Studios. Wex and Photo Video Kit Hire stay with FX-series and mirrorless bodies. For film, a package comes up from Panavision in Greenford.
Lenses
Zeiss Supreme, Cooke S4/i, ARRI Ultra Prime and Zeiss Super Speed sets, Cooke Panchro/i Classics, Kowa and Cooke anamorphics, and Fujinon Premista and Angénieux zooms, all at Media Dog. Bigger anamorphic and vintage sets come up from One Stop Films in Park Royal.
Lighting
Aputure, Godox and SkyPanel LEDs, HMIs up to 2.5K, Kino Flos and Astera tubes at Media Dog; ARRI M90 and ARRIMAX 18/12 HMIs, Creamsource Vortex 8s and 5K tungsten at Spaghetti Studios. A generator or a big rig comes with Panalux, from Hayes in west London.
Grip
Dollies from a Dana Dolly to a Chapman Super PeeWee, track, jibs, sliders, Easyrigs and a car mount at Media Dog. Remote heads and cranes come up from Panavision Grip & Remote Systems in Greenford or ARRI Rental in Uxbridge.
Sound
Sennheiser MKH 416s, G4 and digital radio mics, a Sound Devices 633, Tentacle timecode and Hollyland talkback at Media Dog; shotgun mic kits and recorders at Wex. Richmond Film Services at Shepperton is the specialist.
Playback and data
Monitors and wireless video, DIT and playback kit, external recorders, and media from SD to CFexpress and SxS cards at Media Dog.
05 Kit lists
Kit for the set-ups we run most
Our crew set-ups are on the Birmingham crew page. Here’s the kit that usually goes with them. It’s its own line on every quote, the crew’s own or hired in, with our 10% booking fee and 2% insurance on it.
Two-camera interview
Two Sony FX6s, cine primes or fast zooms, two or three LEDs, radio mics, a shotgun and tripods: the kit behind our low-footprint and premium interview set-ups.
The gaffer’s van
LEDs, stands, flags, cable and distro, in a van that comes to set with the gaffer. A gaffer’s van lit AlTi Tiedemann Global’s fireside chat in London in March 2026. When the gaffer travels in for a Birmingham shoot, the van comes too, and we check it against the Clean Air Zone before it’s booked.
Grip · swing
Grip package
Dolly and track, sliders, stands, flags and frames, for moving shots in an office or a hall. Media Dog lists a Dana Dolly at £100 a day and eight-foot Ronford Baker track at £48 a length; a Chapman Super PeeWee is priced on request.
A 35mm package
Film comes from London. In June 2026 two of our camera crew prepped an Arricam package at Panavision in Greenford in one working day. It was collected three days later, shot on the Lizard in Cornwall the next day and back the day after, and Panavision offered a second body at no charge, as a back-up, because of the location.
06 Paperwork
Your first hire: what a Birmingham house asks for
Kit houses check new customers before anything leaves the building. Here’s what the Birmingham houses publish, and what a London house asked of us.
- Media Dog Hire: your own insurance for the full new-for-old replacement cost, payment when the kit goes out unless you have a credit account, and, from a UK company, a guarantor if Media Dog asks for one.
- Wex Rental: an ID and address check, and a deposit up to the kit’s retail value, which can come down once the checks are done, on the card of whoever collects. Then the 10% waiver, or a copy of your policy.
- Photo Video Kit Hire: photo ID and a proof of address from the last three months, and company details for a production account. No deposit on smaller hires.
- Spaghetti Studios: an insurance cover note showing the hired-in goods value before you collect, plus cover for 16 weeks’ loss of hire.
- Panavision in Greenford, June 2026: payment in full before collection, a credit application, and an insurance certificate for the kit. That’s what it asked of us for a 35mm package.
Book kit through us and the house deals with us: we sort the paperwork and pay the hire. On a crew hire, the 2% insurance on the quote covers the kit we hire in for you, along with employers’ liability for the crew we book. A large rental may need extra cover, as its own line on the quote.
07 Delivery
Getting kit to your location
Five ways kit reaches a Birmingham set.
01
Collected
A crew member collects the afternoon before, inside the house’s hire times. For Media Dog, book the slot first, satnav to B40 1PP for Gate 1 and security will check you in. A camera kit can go by train: Birmingham International is about ten minutes from New Street, and Media Dog is a two-minute walk from the station. Checked October 2026.
02
Driven in
Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone covers every road inside the A4540 Middleway ring road, around the clock. A car or van below Euro 6 diesel or Euro 4 petrol pays £8 a day, an HGV or coach £50 (checked October 2026). The NEC, Hagley Road, Castle Vale and Earlswood are all outside it, so the charge comes with the drive in to a location inside the ring road: Colmore Row, Digbeth, the Jewellery Quarter. We check every van against it before it’s booked. Pay up to six days before or by midnight six days after; miss it and the penalty is £120, or £60 within 14 days. More in our Birmingham logistics guide.
03
Delivered
Media Dog delivers anywhere in the UK, by same-day courier for bigger items or overnight for smaller kits, to arrive the day before the shoot. Wex ships next day by DPD for £24.20 plus VAT if you order by noon, but not at weekends. Spaghetti Studios delivers nationwide; Photo Video Kit Hire is collection only. At the location, a suspended bay costs £18.90 (checked October 2026) and is for technical vehicles only: Production Central WM never counts a passenger vehicle as one. How parking works.
04
On the street
Kit on the highway goes to Production Central WM at least seven days ahead, and so do lighting towers and scaffolding; a cherry picker or scaffold permit is £62. Lighting stands on a pavement need the film office’s clearance, and must be weighted or attended. Checked October 2026. Locations and permits in Birmingham.
05
From London or abroad
Film cameras, big anamorphic sets, remote heads and generators come up from London: Panavision in Greenford, One Stop Films in Park Royal, ARRI Rental in Uxbridge, Panalux in Hayes. Media Dog and Wex both have Manchester bases too. Kit flying in comes on an ATA Carnet: here’s how bringing film equipment into the UK works.
Weekends
Shooting on a Saturday? Media Dog opens on weekdays only, so collect on the Friday. The Wex store on Hagley Road hands over booked kit all weekend and charges Friday to Monday as one day, and Photo Video Kit Hire collects on Saturdays too.
At the NEC
Shooting at the NEC or bp pulse LIVE? Media Dog is on the same campus, behind Hall 3, so a forgotten cable or a spare battery is already on site, once Media Dog knows you’re coming.
Send us your kit list.
Paste it into the form with your dates and the location. We’ll price it both ways: dry hire from a Birmingham house, and with the crew’s own kit. Or call us on 07412 543822.
Quick contact form
08 Questions
Hiring film equipment in Birmingham: questions
How much does it cost to hire a camera in Birmingham?
On the published lists we checked in October 2026, a Sony FX6 is £145 a day at Wex Rental and £160 at Media Dog Hire, an FX3 £75–120 at Photo Video Kit Hire, Wex and Media Dog, and an ARRI Alexa 35 £1,100 at Media Dog. Add VAT, and Wex’s 10% damage waiver or your own insurance. Book the camera with the operator who owns it and the kit fee is its own line on the crew quote.
What’s the difference between wet hire and dry hire?
Dry hire is the kit on its own: you collect it from the house, run it and bring it back. Wet hire comes with the person who operates it, usually its owner. Most crews we book use both: cameras from a kit house, lighting on the gaffer’s van, and the sound recordist’s own kit.
Where are Birmingham’s kit houses?
Out of the city centre. Media Dog Hire, with the longest published list, is behind Hall 3 on the NEC campus, by Birmingham International (the NEC itself is in Solihull). Wex Rental hands over booked kit at the Wex Photo Video store on Hagley Road, Photo Video Kit Hire is in Castle Vale off the M6, Spaghetti Studios is at Earlswood near the M42, and Birmingham Film Studio hires lighting and an LED wall from Hockley Port.
Do I need insurance to hire kit in Birmingham?
You need your own hired-in cover or the house’s damage waiver. Wex adds 10% unless you show it your policy, Photo Video Kit Hire offers optional cover at 15%, and Media Dog and Spaghetti Studios want your own insurance for the kit’s full replacement value, Spaghetti with 16 weeks’ loss of hire on top. Book it through us on a crew hire and the kit is covered by the 2% insurance on the quote.
Can I collect kit at the weekend?
Not from Media Dog, which opens on weekdays only, so collect on the Friday. The Wex store on Hagley Road hands over kit booked in advance seven days a week, and charges a Friday-to-Monday hire as one day. Photo Video Kit Hire collects on Saturdays and charges the weekend as two days.
Does a kit van pay Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone charge?
Only if it drives inside the A4540 Middleway ring road and isn’t compliant: a diesel van below Euro 6 or a petrol van below Euro 4 pays £8 a day, around the clock. The kit houses are all outside the zone, so it’s the location that decides. Checked October 2026.
Can I get to Media Dog at the NEC by train?
Yes. Birmingham International is about ten minutes from New Street, and Media Dog is a two-minute walk from the station, behind Hall 3. Arrange the collection first: you can’t get onto the NEC site without it.
Can specialist kit come up from London?
Yes. None of the Birmingham houses we checked lists a film camera, so film comes up from London, along with the biggest anamorphic sets, remote heads and generators: Panavision, One Stop Films, ARRI Rental and Panalux, all in west London, prepped at the house by the crew who’ll run them, then driven up. Media Dog and Wex both have Manchester bases too, an hour and a half away by train.
Around the crew
More for Birmingham shoots
02
Locations and permits
Production Central WM, the canals, New Street, the parks and the airport’s drone zone.
03
Studios and set builds
Digbeth Loc., Curzon Street, blackout and green screen studios, and set builds.
