If you are looking for the best smartphone for photography, the first thought that might come to your mind is a Google Pixel. After all, Google utilizes the right software tricks to get the best out of the camera hardware. But did you know that Google Pixel is not the most popular camera phone brand?
Yes, according to a recent study by SimpleGhar, the most popular camera phone brand is Apple. In fact, the study found that Apple is the most popular photography device brand! And the interesting part is that the study included smartphones and professional standalone cameras.
Methodology of the Study
So, how did the study find out the most popular camera phone brand or device? To discover the most popular photography brands, camera devices, and camera phones, SimpleGhar considered more than 470 million photos. And to access all that amount of photos, the study relied on Flickr. Now, what is Flickr?
At the core, Flickr is a platform where serious photographers love to let their audience know what camera equipment they are using. They do that by showcasing great photos taken with their equipment. And the most important part is that Flickr’s photographers tend to broadcast their setup by sharing the metadata with their photo files.
That makes it easier to pinpoint which camera device did the photographer use for the photo. SimpleGhar analyzed all these pieces of information and got accurate findings that portray the most popular camera phone devices according to the world’s 100 most populated countries.
4 Year Old Apple iPhone 11 Holds Its Ground As the Most Popular Camera Phone Device
So, as mentioned earlier, the study was not only on camera phone devices. It also included standalone professional photography devices. But one of the study’s key findings is that Apple iPhone 11 is the most popular camera phone according to the images from Flickr.
To be exact, iPhone 11 has 13,212,135 tags on Flickr. In comparison, the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the current latest iPhone model, has 1,894,379 tags. That’s a huge difference. And you can not forget that iPhone 11 is a four-year-old model now. So, it’s quite interesting to see it dominate as the study’s most popular camera phone device.
If you are wondering, Apple iPhone 11 came with a dual camera setup on the back. Both of them are 12MP sensors. The primary is an F/1.8 wide camera with OIS, while the secondary is an F/2.4 ultrawide sensor. These specs might not seem impressive, but they are enough to make the phone the most popular camera device.
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Other Popular Camera Phones
As per the study, Apple iPhones dominate smartphone photography on Flickr. Among all the photos the team analyzed, Apple models ranked in the chart in the top 24 positions by popularity. In comparison, the Galaxy S21 Ultra got 25th position, which is the first time we see a non-Apple device in the chart.
It is followed by the Google Pixel 6 Pro, which appears to be the 26th most popular camera device on Flickr. Interestingly, there’s no sign of Sony Xperias on the top 30 list. We don’t even have devices from Honor, Oppo, and Xiaomi on the list.
That’s pretty surprising to me because specific devices from Oppo and Honor rank pretty high in the list by DXOMARK. And if you are wondering, DXOMARK scores smartphones by putting them through different tests.
Most Popular Camera Phones Based on Countries
The study also took a deeper look into the most popular camera phones according to countries. Here are the main highlights of this category –
- iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most popular in the United States
- iPhone 11 is most popular in China
- iPhone 13 Pro Max is the most popular camera phone in India
- iPhone 13 Pro is most popular in Japan
Again, we see Apple dominating as the most popular camera phone in some of the largest consumer markets in the world. Other than that, the models from iPhone 7 to the latest iPhone 14 Pro accounted for the top device in 62 out of 87 countries. Again, iPhone 11 is the most popular of all.
On the other hand, phones from other brands, such as Samsung and Google, see little prevalence in the chart.
What about Standalone Devices?
Regarding standalone camera devices, Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is the most popular standalone camera device, according to the study. It has 11,761,586 tags on Flickr. On the other hand, Sony ranks 2nd with the A7 III, which has 9,094,495 tags on Flickr.
Nikon, another major camera brand, ranks 4th with its D750. That camera has 7,948,418 tags on Flickr. The rest of the rankings are mostly taken by Canon, while Nikon and Sony take one more spot in the top 10 list.
