Canon and Apple were the top Flickr cameras in 2014

Have you ever wondered which cameras and camera brands were used most to capture the photos posted on Flickr? Granted, this may not be the first question on your mind, but Flickr has what you’d call a proprietary interest in the topic, and decided to throw together some numbers that, taken together, were intriguing.

Considering that in 2014, more than 10 billion photos were uploaded to Flickr by more than 100 million unique users, and considering that Flickr represents a huge cross-section of photographers spanning the range from rank amateur to high-end pro, any change between 2013 and 2014 could be taken to reflect a microcosm of which cameras are gaining momentum in consumer and professional circles. 

Flickr did not categorize or discriminate by brand or type but combined results to include mobile cameras and individual camera models, including mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and DSLRs.

For top cameras posting to the service, Canon, Apple and Nikon took the first, second and third spots as camera brands used on Flickr in 2014. Apple’s iPhone 5 was the top mobile camera and the top individual camera last year as well.

The composition of the top five brands did not change from 2013 to 2014, but their relative positioning did. While Canon topped the list almost unchanged in both 2013 and 2014, with 13.4 percent of uploaded Flickr photos in 2014, Apple’s iPhone edged out Nikon for the second spot. Similarly, Samsung nudged Sony for the number four spot with a rise from 2.4 percent in 3013 to 5.6 percent last year.

Drilling down to the most popular individual camera models, there was very little change in the top tiers, though some shuffling was evident below the stable top five. The iPhone 5, 4S and 4 were the top three for both years, with the Canon EOS 7D and the Nikon D7000 unchanged in 4th and fifth place respectively.

Apple’s iPhone dominated the top mobile cameras in both years too — not surprisingly — and Sony edged out competitors within its own brand in the mirrorless category with the A7 ascending to a top tier, pushing its NEX 5N and NEX 5 down in the rankings.

The DSLR lineup also proved fairly stable with the Canon EOS 7D at 2.4 percent tying the Nikon D7000 for the top spot last year.