Smartphones dominate Flickr’s report detailing the most popular imaging devices of the year on the image sharing network. It is news that is both surprising and unsurprising at the same time, given the world we live in today.
Eight of the Top Ten cameras used on Flickr in 2016 were some variation of the Apple iPhone. The two ‘real’ cameras that managed to make the top 10 list? None other than Canon’s 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III, proof again that Canon is still top dog, despite all the negatives said about them from the mirrorless camp.
Top Cameras of 2016
- Apple iPhone 6
- Apple iPhone 5s
- Apple iPhone 6s
- Apple iPhone 5
- Apple iPhone 6 Plus
- Apple iPhone 4S
- Apple iPhone 6s Plus
- Canon EOS 5D Mark III
- Apple iPhone 5c
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II
So what are people posting images of on Flickr? Many photographers stopped using the service years ago, but the top tags used will give you a clue as to who, or I should say, what demographic of photographer stuck around. The top tags used on Flickr in 2016 were all pretty indicative of landscape and nature photographers, though the portrait tag did creep into the top 10 at position #9.
Top Tags of 2016
- Nature
- Sunset
- Water
- Sky
- Landscape
- Blue
- Red
- Beach
- Portrait
- Night
The question I find myself asking here is this; how representative are these results to the larger photo community as a whole? As I noted earlier, many photographers (or those who call themselves photographers) moved away from Flickr many years ago, on to sites like Behance and 500px, so are the Flickr numbers still representative of the greater market/community, or is this fairly contained to the Flickr community?
Regardless of the scope, the numbers themselves are interesting and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for camera companies. If you would like to check out more of these stats, or maybe check out the top 25 images posted to Flickr in 2016 you can head on over to the Flickr blog to see all the goodness, here.