# 5D Mk3 Web's Most Popular Camera, based on true online EXIF info.



## Yiannis A - Greece (Jul 27, 2016)

Dear friends,

I hereby place a link to a very interesting (well, in my opinion) global statistics site; positions that cameras take, are based on real data pulled by exif of photographs, posted on Flickr, 500px, Pixabay etc! 

Take a look yourselves and have fun! The link is:

https://explorecams.com/stats/global

Have a nice evening; enjoy yourselves and those you love the most.

Yours
Yiannis.


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## Bennymiata (Jul 27, 2016)

Thanks Yannis.
Seems the 5d3 and 24-105 is a popular combination, so I'm in good comapny as this is MY most used combo too.


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## unfocused (Jul 27, 2016)

But...but...but...I thought Canon and Nikon were ******* and Sony was taking over the world.

Sorry, I just had to be the first to say that.

Seriously, thanks for posting. It is interesting. 

A couple of comments:

This clearly reflects camera enthusiasts and not your average person. Otherwise I suspect Apple would far and away lead the field. 

I note that when it come to specific cameras, 83% use "other." That's a lot of Rebels and Nikon DXXXX bodies.


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## Valvebounce (Jul 27, 2016)

Hi Unfocused. 
I'm sorry but it doesn't count when said in jest, you have to really mean it for it to properly annoy the target market! ;D ;D ;D

Cheers, Graham. 



unfocused said:


> But...but...but...I thought Canon and Nikon were ******* and Sony was taking over the world.
> 
> Sorry, I just had to be the first to say that.
> 
> ...


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## Maiaibing (Jul 27, 2016)

Yiannis A - Greece said:


> Dear friends,
> 
> I hereby place a link to a very interesting (well, in my opinion) global statistics site; positions that cameras take, are based on real data pulled by exif of photographs, posted on Flickr, 500px, Pixabay etc!
> 
> ...



Thanks for posting. However, the misleading headline you provided have confused people.

First of all, the stats tell us nothing about the most popular camera on the web (we know for a fact its NOT the 5DIII by any stretch of imagination, its not even remotely close).

This is seemingly a random sample of data based on exif from a little less than 7 million pictures. We do not know how they were selected or sorted. Lots of sites do not share exif info or allow them to be "pulled" by a bot.

The number of pictures posted to the web runs into the *billions*. So this is a very, very, very small - in fact totally insignificant and irrelevant - sample to answer which camera is the most popular/used on the web.

What is in fact the most popular camera out there? The iphone - by a *colossal *margin. Represented at a laughable 4.2% in this "global" survey which in fact makes itself no claims itself to say anything about the distribution of cameras, lenses etc. used on the web but only is an advertisement for the tool used providing a select sample. Instagram alone - completely dominated by phone-pictures - runs up almost 100 million pictures and videos *every day*. And that's not even taking into account Facebook and Twitter...



It always surprises me how easily a simple stat and a luring headline makes people jump to all sorts of conclusions - even when they defy simple common sense.


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## unfocused (Jul 27, 2016)

dilbert said:


> It is a random sampling which is the correct method to use.



It's not a random sample and doesn't claim to be. It's a compilation of statistics from specific photo sharing sites. Nothing random and nothing sampled. 



dilbert said:


> Is it possible to count all of the stars in the milky way or galaxies in the universe? No - statistics, maths and estimation are used. Nobody questions it. The same holds here...



Wrong again. It may not be possible to count all the stars in the Milky Way, but apparently it is possible to count all the images posted on specific photo sharing sites, which is exactly what they did here. 



Maiaibing said:


> ...this is a very, very, very small - in fact totally insignificant and irrelevant - sample to answer which camera is the most popular/used on the web.



Yes...and No. It is irrelevant to answer "which camera is the most popular/used on the web." But, if you want to know which cameras are most popular on a selection of specific photo sharing sites, it will tell you that. As with so many statistics, the key is to understand what is being measured.


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## Yiannis A - Greece (Jul 27, 2016)

Maiaibing said:


> Yiannis A - Greece said:
> 
> 
> > Dear friends,
> ...



Dear friend

I just posted what i thought that would be a link to a quite legitimate statistics analysis so, please be so kind not to use phrases like "misleading headline" or "luring headline" cause i'm just a logistics entrepreneur and a photography enthousiast from Greece, travelling around the world, taking pictures in order to help my brain recollect moments and feelings of a life well spent, when years have passed and memory gets weak!

Trust me, i have no intention to mislead anybody or lure anyone! I may get a little bit overreacting because i adore my pair of 5D Mk3's but, nothing more, no bad intentions. I'd also like to tell you i'm sorry, if my English is not on par with yours and may lead to getting myself misunderstood but, i'm not a native English speaker and i bet "all in" that it's ages better than anyone's Greek will ever be out there.

So, enjoy what you do, be lucky, healthy and strong and aquire whatever you like in your life. Have the privilege to be surrounded by those you love and those that love you the most.

Have a nice day, all of you dear friends.
Yours
Yiannis.


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## SteveM (Jul 27, 2016)

Statistics: you can quote Mark Twain, ' lies, damned lies and statistics'. You can quote Churchill 'I only believe in statistics I've doctored myself'. Personally, I don't much believe any either. Here though, thanks Yiannis, it's a bit of fun. Not surprised to see the 5D Mklll well placed as it is a very very good general purpose camera (I've got 2 of them); unsurprised also to see the 24-105 post well, yes it is the kit lens of a hugely popular camera...also a lot of people's go to lens I imagine. Shame Nikon isn't placed a little higher perhaps, the stronger the competition the better the next version of your favourite camera will be, I'm hoping the D500 will drive the 7D Mklll to better and higher levels. 

Bit like the weather forecast, statistics.


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## Maiaibing (Jul 27, 2016)

dilbert said:


> The article mentions which sites were used. What it doesn't say is that websites such as facebook, etc, quite clearly can't be used.


No - it only mentions some of the sites used - or if I missed the full list please provide a link.



dilbert said:


> It is a random sampling which is the correct method to use.


I trust this is a joke? To have any value in connection with the heading used here it needs to be a carefully selected *representative *sample. Exactly *not *a random sample.




dilbert said:


> Is it possible to count all of the stars in the milky way or galaxies in the universe? No - statistics, maths and estimation are used. Nobody questions it. The same holds here: as long as the selection is random and there aren't any significant biases then the conclusion is reasonable.
> 
> What would I call a significant bias? Say 50% of people on flickr use Nikon or 50% of people on smugmug use Canon, etc.
> 
> What would be interesting to know is the deviation from the averages reported that are present on each site that was used as a source.



Not sure what you are trying to say. But fact is that these stats tell us *nothing *about the average use of cameras on the web.


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## Valvebounce (Jul 28, 2016)

Hi Yiannis. 
An interesting set of statistics, thank you for sharing. Don't worry about the quarrelling about the statistics and their relevance, it is not an uncommon occurrence from what I have seen previously. Despite what I write below I still found it interesting to see. 

Hi Folks. 
I see it has been surmised that it might be looking at enthusiast users as the iPhone does not feature in the statistics, I wonder if this is enthusiast users would there be such a high percentage of users in auto exposure, over 50% possibly closer to 60%, or do you think they count AV and TV as auto as well as *[]* and P? 
I'm guessing this might be the case as they are not specified separately, however I would have said that they were more semi automated than *[]* and P and should be counted as separate modes to get a meaningful breakdown of shooting modes, what say you? 

Cheers, Graham.


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## unfocused (Jul 28, 2016)

Valvebounce said:


> ...I wonder if this is enthusiast users would there be such a high percentage of users in auto exposure, over 50% possibly closer to 60%, or do you think they count AV and TV as auto as well as *[]* and P?



The charts only list three choices: manual, auto and auto-bracket. Seems strange to me that they divide it up this way, but I assume that "auto" includes AV, TV and P.


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## Maiaibing (Jul 28, 2016)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi Folks.
> I see it has been surmised that it might be looking at enthusiast users as the iPhone does not feature in the statistics,



? The iphone is certainly represented in this random sample:

TOTAL:

287,920

Apple iPhone 6
Apple iPhone 5s
Apple iPhone 6s
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Apple iPhone 5


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## unfocused (Jul 28, 2016)

Maiaibing said:


> ...The iphone is certainly represented in this random sample...



Let's try this again. This is NOT a random sample and it does not claim to be. 

People consistently use "random sample" without any concept of what it means. As I explained above when Dilbert incorrectly used the term, this is a compilation of information from multiple photo sharing sites. They did not randomly sample anything, they simply compiled the data. (To their credit, they never claimed it was a random sample.)

To conduct a random sample, you must first decide on the universe you are going to test and them select a sample from that universe using a process of random selection. There are a number of ways you can randomly select a sample, but they all have one thing in common: In order to be accurate, every member of the universe being sampled must have an equal opportunity to be selected.


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## Maiaibing (Jul 28, 2016)

unfocused said:


> Maiaibing said:
> 
> 
> > ...The iphone is certainly represented in this random sample...
> ...



You can write that 100 times and it will be wrong every time if you are talking about statistics. This is not about your everyday random where anything deliberate is non-random. Its about whether the sampling is relevant or not - and this is certainly not a sample that will say *anything at all * about the most popular camera on the web.

Thus it *is *a random sample because the methodology makes it random. Random is not a statistical abstract. This sample is random or non-random according to the claim that the numbers say something about the most popular camera on the web (the sites heading).

To spell it out: Its random in at least two statistical dimensions: 1) the selection of web sites do not representative of pictures posted on the web making it random to the finding the web's most popular cameras (which is the relevant measure here according to the site) *and * 2) the methodology does not take into account the presence/availability of some/all/correct exif.

And to top off we can put the sample to a simple practical test: are the results believable/close/accurate or anything like this when it comes to the claim we are being presented stats of the web's most popular camera - no. 

Its so far off its laughable to even sit here and start arguing with someone that this is a representative sampling of the web's most popular camera. It is patently clear that it is not. The unweighted/corrected selection of sites and unweighted/uncorrected use of exif data and pictures with exif data determines this.

Yeah stats can be fun, but these do not - and cannot - support any legitimate claims about the web's most popular cameras (or their settings for that matter).


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## unfocused (Jul 28, 2016)

dilbert said:


> It is a random sampling which is the correct method to use.





unfocused said:


> It's not a random sample and doesn't claim to be. It's a compilation of statistics from specific photo sharing sites. Nothing random and nothing sampled.






Maiaibing said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > Maiaibing said:
> ...



[quote author=Wikipedia]
In statistics, a simple random sample is a subset of individuals (a sample) chosen from a larger set (a population). Each individual is chosen randomly and entirely by chance, such that each individual has the same probability of being chosen at any stage during the sampling process, and each subset of k individuals has the same probability of being chosen for the sample as any other subset of k individuals.[1] This process and technique is known as simple random sampling, and should not be confused with systematic random sampling. A simple random sample is an unbiased surveying technique.[/quote]

I give up. That sound you hear is me banging my head against the wall.


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