Sadness

Vautrin · Jan 3, 2013

Photokina had a link on their facebook that made me very sad.

Basically, they looked at all the great "photos of the year" and did analysis of the EXIF data.

While it's in german, I'm sure many of you will share my sadness when you see this graph, which is not in german:

http://www.gizmodo.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/camerachart_1.jpg

The full article is here:

Die besten Fotos des Jahres: Diese Kameras und Einstellungen stecken dahinter | GIZMODO DEGIZMODO DE

runnah · Jan 3, 2013

It just shows that Nikon owners are to cool to enter lame contests.

o hey tyler · Jan 3, 2013

What's wrong? I didn't see the iPhone camera on there... So it can't be that.

KmH · Jan 3, 2013

Google chrome translated -
Each year, the Reuters news agency published a list of the best images of their photographers

So the 50 photos come from a limited pool of images, in a fairly specific genre.

Plus since the sample is only 50 photos, only very limited conclusions can be made from the EXIF data of those 50 photos.

So, what does sadness have to do with the article?[/FONT][/COLOR]

amolitor · Jan 3, 2013

It looks like its Reuters "best photos of the year" so it's pretty much what the freelance photojournalists are using, which is mostly Canon, sure.

ETA: Maybe the sadness is in the completely irrelevant breakdown of bullsh*t metrics? Who gives a crap what aperture or shutter speed the best photographs of the year were shot at, and anyways a glance at that data shows that it's almost certainly pretty pure randomness. Making cute little pie charts isn't the same thing as science, or interesting.

Derrel · Jan 3, 2013

Thom Hogan did an analysis of that article's data a while back. He noted that many of the photos had been shot at f/2.8--the VAST majority!!! And also AT A RELATIVELY HIGH SHUTTER SPEED, to ensure sharp shots! The majority of the shots were also made with the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L zoom lens, which makes perfect sense, since so many news shots are done wide-angle, in situ. He even analyzed the common ISO speeds!!! I tried to find, quickly, Thom's discussion of this data. It actually shows more than "bull**** metrics", as amolitor dismissed the data as being...it actually gives some insight into the way PJ shots are actually MADE these days, by working photojournalists.

Reuters is a "Canon house", in the vernacular. AP and Reuters are the reason Canon put video into their D-SLRs...so AP and Reuters shooters would have a way to shoot video clips to distribute with their wire photo stories. The huge pool of shooters working for the AP and Reuters have a big impact on PJ cameras.

tirediron · Jan 3, 2013

Mehhh.... who cares?

nycphotography · Jan 3, 2013

Derrel said:
Thom Hogan did an analysis of that article's data a while back. He noted that many of the photos had been shot at f/2.8--the VAST majority!!! And also AT A RELATIVELY HIGH SHUTTER SPEED, to ensure sharp shots! The majority of the shots were also made with the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L zoom lens, which makes perfect sense, since so many news shots are done wide-angle, in situ. He even analyzed the common ISO speeds!!! I tried to find, quickly, Thom's discussion of this data. It actually shows more than "bull**** metrics", as amolitor dismissed the data as being...it actually gives some insight into the way PJ shots are actually MADE these days, by working photojournalists.

Reuters is a "Canon house", in the vernacular. AP and Reuters are the reason Canon put video into their D-SLRs...so AP and Reuters shooters would have a way to shoot video clips to distribute with their wire photo stories. The huge pool of shooters working for the AP and Reuters have a big impact on PJ cameras.

Interesting... 52.9% 16-35mm, 38.2% 70-200mm. they are ALWAYS either "right there in the mix" or "shooting from a safe distance away".

Another chart shows approx 50% were shot at f2.8 or wider,with about 20% shot at f2.0 or wider. Always wide open.

Wait... how can 20% of the images be shot at a wider aperture than 91.1% of the lenses used supported????

That smells funky. Something is wrong w/ the data.

Yeah, it ALSO says that 17.6% were shot at 50mm, but 91.1% of the shots didn't even support that focal length. Something seems decidedly wrong here.

Hmm.