Once again, the world’s most popular camera is a phone.
Smartphones, led by Apple’s iPhone, was the type of camera used most by photographers in 2016 on the photo-sharing site Flickr, according its annual analysis of EXIF data on pictures uploaded to the site.
The iPhone was in the hands of shooters for 47 percent of the pictures uploaded to Flickr. Canon and Nikon were second and third with 24 and 18 percent.
Overall, smartphones accounted for 48 percent, up from 39 percent in 2015, while the DSLR continues to see less action, going from 31 percent a year ago to 25 percent.
Photo: Flickr
Eight out of 10 devices in the smartphone category were iPhone with the 5s, 6 and 6s in the top three positions.
The Year in Review findings were released Tuesday on Flickr’s blog.
That the iPhone, the camera everyone carries with them with apps that allow for instant sharing, is so popular may not be news to you. But a yearly look at its popularity by the numbers continues to drop jaws, while old-guard camera companies scramble to create new products to stay relevant.
We can be fairly confident in writing “world’s most popular” because of Flickr’s reach. This is not a random sample of 1,000 people. Flickr has 120 million users from 63 countries uploading about a million photos a day.
It wasn’t until 2015 that the iPhone surpassed all other cameras among Flickr users, that in a year when the “Shot on iPhone 6” marketing campaign stunned the world with giant billboards and slick magazine ads of pictures made by everyday users.
The camera, sensor and software just keep getting better on the iPhone. This year, the iPhone 7 Plus in particular has serious photographers excited because of a dual-lens camera that includes an optical zoom and software that lets a user blur the background – the bokeh affect – when shooting portraits.
