iPhone Remains Flickr's Most Popular Camera in 2017 Ahead of Canon and Nikon

[fairuz]

That may be true, but for what purposes?

Creative stuff, pro photography, or amateurs who want good quality for some special events.

 

[AgentAnonymous]

Flckr?! Isn't Instagram considered the definative photo sharing app nowadays?

Sure if you like extremely poor photo quality. Instagram heavily downscales and transcodes everything.

 

[Glideslope]

I disagree. If you read through "The Camera", "The Negative", and "The Print" you get the sense that he was a man that enjoyed pushed the edges of what the technology could do. And someone who knew that being in the right place and capturing the image, was just the beginning of the process of creating his vision. Fortunately for us he documented his process in these books so other did not have to learn the hard way, like he did.

I think he would very impressed with these little cameras and the options they provide for capturing images. He would probably also be a master at Photoshop and other photo editing tools, and greatly enjoy the algortihms used in snapchat and other apps to make funny images.

Going to have to respectfully disagree on this on. If he was a master of CS6 his workflow would not be all iPhone based. Phones are for selfies and birthday parties.

 

[Suxamethonium]

That may be true, but for what purposes?

An iPhone (or any decent camera phone) is an excellent replacement for your average point and shoot. With the advantage that you always have it with you.

On the other hand even with some clever software it cannot replace interchangeable lens cameras (be they DSLR or mirrorless), the optics just don’t line up.

Not to say that a smartphone camera is a bad thing, and a good photographer with an iPhone will still beat out a mediocre one with a medium format camera, but a real camera provides more artistic options than a few filters and special effects.

 

[nburwell]

Flickr is still a great web site to share quality images with your followers/Flickr community. 500px pops into my head as well, but that site is more or less a popularity contest which does not interest me at all.

That said, over the years I have posted my images more and more on Instagram. I still browse Flickr each day, but I have not posted on there since my trip to Kauai back in May. Although a good amount of photographer friends who I follow I have noticed have posted on Flickr less and Instagram more. But I love looking at the detail of images on a big computer monitor rather than my iPhone.

 

[fathergll]

I used to be very active on Flickr, I even got to sell many photos to big names. The whole community has come to a stand still. People don't post as often, they rarely -if ever- comment if you don't post to a group that has comment-posting rules. The admins are doing too little, too late to engage the community and bring editing and engagement tools that are common in other sites or apps. It's basically dead, except for the most hardcore of photographers.

True it's not as active but trust me it's used quite often to upload photos. As an example do a search on a new camera like the Nikon D850 and there are tons of pictures offering full quality to view.

Agreed flickr is for hardcore photographers that care about quality.

 

[millerlite]

Flickr is actually an amazing website for photos despite the millennials thinking Instagram is da bomb. If you care anything about the quality of photos then Flickr is pretty damn good. You can view/download full size photos from everything up to a 100MP Phase One camera.

So much this. I love Flickr for hosting and sharing my photos and videos. Instagram or whatever can be fine for showing off pics here and there, but I wouldn't use it for storing all my stuff.
[doublepost=1512746605][/doublepost]

Exactly. I never take my Canon 40d with me anywhere anymore. It attracts way too much attention in foreign countries, it's a huge pain to haul around, etc... etc... For the last 4-5 years, most of my photos are via my cellphones.

I have the same camera, and I agree. Yeah, I can see the pics on my camera, but I like to share photos as soon as I take them in many cases. I like the higher quality with a DSLR, but the 40D doesn't geotag and getting pictures from it onto the web is a pain in the butt. Newer cameras go around that by having GPS built in and connecting directly to the net and uploading to your site of choice, like Flickr. I want to upgrade to a newer DSLR, but my wallet is telling me the iPhone is good enough for now.

 

[citysnaps]

How depressing. We live in a world of Selfies, and Snapsots. Ansel is face down in his grave these days. Just like SJ.

Yeah... Just like that last disaster with the marriage of low-cost desktop computers and inexpensive word processing software. All those people all of sudden thinking they're writers, some exploring creative endeavors, with some excelling. Shameful.


And now we have millions of people who now have low cost tools to happily pursue photographic artistry (if they care to). Adams would be very pleased.
[doublepost=1512747083][/doublepost]

[These are just my personal opinions.]

Selfies and phone cameras are the death of photography as art. And, twitter and blogs (or, even worse, vlogs) portent the death of the written word as craft.

Not at all. Like always, cream rises to the top. There's a ton of outstanding photography out there across many genres. If you care to look...

Did the advent of desktop computers and low cost word processing software cause the death of novels and journalism?

 

[Glideslope]

Yeah... Just like that last disaster with the marriage of low-cost desktop computers and inexpensive word processing software. All those people all of sudden thinking they're writers, some exploring creative endeavors, with some excelling. Shameful. And now we have millions of people who now have low cost tools to happily pursue photographic artistry (if they care to). Adams would be very pleased.

Sure. I'd bet he'd master the B&W Selfie in no time. LOL.

 

[citysnaps]

Sure. I'd bet he'd master the B&W Selfie in no time. LOL.

Don't know about selfies. But Adams was certainly not adverse to technology, especially in his later years.

Still, there will always be some who think photography is about gear, their quest for the best, etc. That's very easy to see in their photos and conversations, in most cases.

 

[neuropsychguy]

... that works.

iPhone camera too often fails resulting in no picture.

I'm not sure what iPhone you have but I've never had this problem in the 3+ years I've had an iPhone and more than 8000 pictures/videos taken. I've had photos not turn out as good as I hoped (usually motion blurring) but I've never missed an "important" picture because of an iPhone camera failing.

 

[Glideslope]

Don't know about selfies. But Adams was certainly not adverse to technology, especially in his later years.

Still, there will always be some who think photography is about gear, their quest for the best, etc. That's very easy to see in their photos and conversations, in most cases.

I'm not about gear. I'm about the art of creating an image being distorted into snapshots by phones. The pro phone camera argument in itself is about gear.

 

[fathergll]

So much this. I love Flickr for hosting and sharing my photos and videos. Instagram or whatever can be fine for showing off pics here and there, but I wouldn't use it for storing all my stuff.
[doublepost=1512746605][/doublepost]

Yep. Whats the point of spending money on these high end mirrorless or DSLRs if its going to be uploaded to Instagram to be viewed on your smartphone.

 

[citysnaps]

I'm not about gear. I'm about the art of creating an image being distorted into snapshots by phones. The pro phone camera argument in itself is about gear.

Only to the extent that a phone camera, by many, is not considered a "real" camera and not worthy of artistic endeavors. And with that, many here believe you're not a real photographer if you happen to use a phone camera.

Thus my comment about photography not being about gear. Rather, it's about the photographer, his/her eye, imagination, curiosity, life experiences, ability to compose, read light, and much more.

Some would much rather talk about gear than discuss photographs or projects. That speaks volumes.

.

If I ask a photographer, "What do you shoot?" I can easily tell where they're coming from just from their one sentence answer.

If the answer is, "I shoot a Canon 5D IV, with a 70-200 f/4 zoom." That tells me something.

If the answer is, "I shoot in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood documenting changes over the last 10 years." That tells me something far different.

Guess which photographer I'd rather have a few beers with...

 

[fathergll]

[These are just my personal opinions.]

Selfies and phone cameras are the death of photography as art. And, twitter and blogs (or, even worse, vlogs) portent the death of the written word as craft.

Well i look at it this way......people who fall under the 'Selfies and phone cameras' were never photographers to begin with. They shot with disposable cameras in the 90s and 80s..etc. I don't see how smartphones have a negative impact on the art of Photography.
[doublepost=1512751852][/doublepost]

Agreed. Cell phones killed the point and shoot. And many point and shoots have sensors as small as phones, so it's a no brainer since I always have my phone with me.

I have a proper dedicated camera and it's my go-to for when I deliberately go out to shoot photos. However, for my day to day life, my phone fulfills my needs. I don't think that buyers for DSLR's cross shop with cell phones -- just my $0.02.

Most point and shoots yes. The only point and shoots that really make sense are the advance ones. Full frame Sony RX1 or Leica Q. Fujifilm X100 series is also a very good point and shoot(crop sensor)

 

[Glideslope]

Only to the extent that a phone camera, by many, is not considered a "real" camera and not worthy of artistic endeavors. And with that, many here believe you're not a real photographer if you happen to use a phone camera.

Thus my comment about photography not being about gear. Rather, it's about the photographer, his/her eye, imagination, curiosity, life experiences, ability to compose, read light, and much more.

Some would much rather talk about gear than discuss photographs or projects. That speaks volumes.

.

If I ask a photographer, "What do you shoot?" I can easily tell where they're coming from just from their one sentence answer.

If the answer is, "I shoot a Canon 5D IV, with a 70-200 f/4 zoom." That tells me something.

If the answer is, "I shoot in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood documenting changes over the last 10 years." That tells me something far different.

Guess which photographer I'd rather have a few beers with...

I agree. However, I don’t see the iPhone Camera generation shooting in one location for 10 month, let alone years. We will have to leave it at that. Perhaps some day I’ll see things differently. Until then I can’t make the images that appeal to me on an iPhone. I’m glad there are those who enjoy their creations with it.

 

[jerryk]

Don't know about selfies. But Adams was certainly not adverse to technology, especially in his later years.

Still, there will always be some who think photography is about gear, their quest for the best, etc. That's very easy to see in their photos and conversations, in most cases.

I used to think it was about gear. Now that my technique is better I can get some pretty good shots with smaller cameras. My Canon 1DMK4 and 5DMK3 are collecting dust these days. I use my phone, Galaxy S8, for casual shots at events like birthdays. And for serious work use Olympus EM-1 MK 2 and Oly lenses. Their image stabilization is so good you can shoot handheld 4 seconds exposures. And the whole package is lighter than a pro DSLR body.

 

[Glideslope]

I used to think it was about gear. Now that my technique is better I can get some pretty good shots with smaller cameras. My Canon 1DMK4 and 5DMK3 are collecting dust these days. I use my phone, Galaxy S8, for casual shots at events like birthdays. And for serious work use Olympus EM-1 MK 2 and Oly lenses. Their image stabilization is so good you can shoot handheld 4 seconds exposures. And the whole package is lighter than a pro DSLR body.

Don’t make the mistake though of being caught in the “Gear Never Matters” group. A “Gear Head” is something quite different from choosing the correct gear for your individual needs.

 

[mdatwood]

Going to have to respectfully disagree on this on. If he was a master of CS6 his workflow would not be all iPhone based. Phones are for selfies and birthday parties.

Maybe not all iPhone based, but he would have loved phone cameras. One of Adams complaints based on my readings, was carrying around a lot of heavy equipment. He found that having the smallest/lightest gear possible led him to hike to more interesting places and lead to more interesting pictures.
[doublepost=1512775130][/doublepost]

I used to think it was about gear. Now that my technique is better I can get some pretty good shots with smaller cameras. My Canon 1DMK4 and 5DMK3 are collecting dust these days. I use my phone, Galaxy S8, for casual shots at events like birthdays. And for serious work use Olympus EM-1 MK 2 and Oly lenses. Their image stabilization is so good you can shoot handheld 4 seconds exposures. And the whole package is lighter than a pro DSLR body.

I'm jealous about your lighter package. I've lugged my dslr + lenses all over the world on vacation, and while I'm happy with the shots, I know I have missed some because of the pain of lugging the camera around. On my last vacation I made an effort to use the 7+ I had in situations where it should work well and it really did shine. I took the time learn what the 7+ and now X can do, and it's pretty awesome the shots you can get. It does not replace being able to zoom out to 300mm or capture low light like my prime 35mm, but those times are typically something I can plan for.

 

[Abazigal]

Flckr?! Isn't Instagram considered the definative photo sharing app nowadays?

Different services for different purposes.

Instagram is for casual photos. Flickr is for professional photographers to showcase their work and as a portfolio of sorts.

The implication here is that users evidently consider their iPhone photos good enough to host on flickr alongside photographs taken with more powerful, dedicated cameras. Which is testament to how far the iPhone camera has come.

As to why android phones are underrepresented there, well, that may be another debate for another day.

 

[Hdie]

I find it hard to believe that 95% of pictures were taken with Apple, Canon and Nikon. Leaving 5% for all the other smart phones and cameras...BS

 

[HappyMBAowner]

Just tested a shot taken with my somewhat old Canon SX 150 IS (14mp - 12X zoom) camera that I had left unused for a while since I use an iPhone. Wow! Much better quality, greater details, better color rendering. iPhone is fine and very convenient for daily pictures and videos and "gives the impression" that pictures are better because of the way pictures are processed. But it's an impression because colors are boosted and appear much clearer on apple screens. But for much better and realistic pictures, your DSLR camera cannot be beaten. 20X and more optical zoom is not available on iPhones yet. Sorry.
[doublepost=1512945269][/doublepost]Instagram is for photo sharing mainly. Flikr can also be used (and mostly used) because of unlimited storage capabilities for free.

 

[MacBergin]

Flickr? that's like saying email me at my Yahoo address.

 

[mi7chy]

Flickr? that's like saying email me at my Yahoo address.

More like AOL email.

Flickr is on life support if you compare the # of downloads or reviews vs Google Photos, Instagram, etc. which is like 10 million vs 1 billion.

 

[barmann]

Isn't there a difference between being most popular, and most commonly used ?