It’s all well and good for us to argue over which camera has the best sensor, or which company offers the best marriage of camera hardware and software, but that’s not representative of what people are actually using to capture their photos every day.
To that end, we turn to photo-sharing site Flickr. Yahoo-owned Flickr has examined the data associated with all of the images uploaded in the last year and compiled a list of the brands and devices that crop up most frequently.
There were some interesting developments this year, mostly on the top camera brands list. In 2014, Apple jumped by nearly two full percentage points to number two and pushed Nikon down to third place. Samsung also sped by Sony with a near-1.5% increase.
It’s important to note that neither Nikon nor Sony actually lost any ground. In fact, both showed growth compared to their numbers in 2013. In 2013, Nikon accounted for 8.8% of the cameras on Flickr. For 2014, that number jumped to 9.3%, but it wasn’t quite enough to compete with Apple’s jump from 7.7% in 2013 to 9.65%. Similarly, Sony went from 3.5% to 4.2% but Samsung’s increase from 2.4% to 5.6% was much more significant.
As far as specific camera models go, Apple’s iPhone remains number one. The iPhone 5 was number one last year with 2.2% and it’s held that spot and increased its share to 3.1% for 2014. The iPhone 4S, second place in 2013, has been pushed down by the iPhone 5S. Canon’s 600D is the only non-Apple camera to crack the top five, and it comes in just under the fourth place contender, the iPhone 4. However, Flickr points out that the large range of models offered by Nikon and Canon mean their cameras are often lost in the diversity of their product lineups when it comes to these kinds of by-model breakdowns.
The list of top 10 mobile cameras is also pretty interesting. The iPhone 3GS, number four last year, is no longer on the list at all. We also see the appearance of the iPhone 5C, the the Galaxy S5, and the HTC One. Apple made up 60% of the mobile cameras owned by Flickr users but Android cameras gained and Samsung in particular went from about 6% to nearly 15% in the second half of 2014.
[source]Flickr[/source]
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