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Just been poking around the Flickr stats pages. Here’s a chart of camera brands arranged by popularity among Flickr users (the stats are derived from image EXIF data). The two manufacturers in the top two spots are predictable enough, but it’s interesting to see Sony* ahead of more traditional still camera brands such as Olympus, Kodak and FujiFilm. Also interesting to see Nokia camera phones ahead of other famous camera industry names such as Pentax, Konica-Minolta and Ricoh. Flickr’s statisticians point out that camera phones are the most likely to create images without EXIF data, and thus, as a general class, are under-represented in the stats.

Canon and Nikon hold the the number one and number two spots respectively, with Canon’s EOS Digital Rebel XT model, used to take 52,320,730 (sic!) of the images that have been uploaded to Flickr. The most popular Nikon model (in terms of images uploaded) is the D50 which has been used to shoot 25,368,091 of Flickr’s images. There are some staggering numbers involved here!

Equally interesting is the “Activity Factor” figure which Flickr describes as “… a number derived from photos, members and a model’s rank to indicate cameras that are used ‘a lot’“. In other words, the Activity Factor shows the cameras that are used the most by their owners.

My own camera (now a discontinued model) is responsible for 15,285,064 Flickr images, with 27,162 of those being uploaded yesterday.

(*Before you consider buying a Sony DSLR, you might want to check out the reviews on DPReview.com. It seems that Sony have some way to go before its still cameras match the quality of its video cameras.)