I’m a numbers guy, so while I’m charging camera batteries, I like to go to Flickr’s camera page. I am intrigued today by the statistics related to mirrorless cameras. All right “statistics” (sigh) I know. And you don’t need to browbeat me about the skewiness of Flickr users, etc. I know. But as I say, intrigued. This post updates my previous story from September.
Flickr provides several dimensions – number of users, number of images, activity factor (an unrevealed algorithm to determine popularity) and provides a ranking number. As in September, the relative popularity of mirrorless models remains high.
Although in decline, the Panasonic GF1 (a two year old micro four-thirds model – here’s a link to my review in The Star of the GF1 as a camcorder) has declined to 185 daily posters (from 322 in September 2012), but remains their most used camera on flickr.
Fuji’s X100 is their highest rated camera and fell from 319 (September 2012) to 294. The X10 (182 from September’s 188 posters) is ranked #2.
At Olympus, the E-M5 (DSLR) remains number 1 (up to 389 from 322 posters) and the micro four-thirds E-PL1 remains second (down to 201 from 236 posters).
Samsung’s numbers are overwhelmed by smartphones, and the NX10 (down to 16 from 18 posters) ranks #17.
Nikon’s J1 (at 99 from 101 posters) ranks up to #28 from 30. The V1 is at #37 with 55. No wonder it’s being heavily discounted.
Flickr categorizes all of the above as point and shoot models. The Sony NEX series are categorized as DSLRs. The top ranked Sony camera across all models in all categories is the NEX5N (up slightly to 327 from 322 posters). The NEX 5 (242 from 293 posters, ranked as #3). The Rx100 (really my favourite camera of 2012 is #2 with 208 posters. The NEX7 (at 180 from 183 posters, now ranked as #5 from #7).
Sony’s NEX5N now has a clearer lead over the GF1. (And full disclosure here: I own both of these cameras.) For comparison: Flickr’s Activity Factor: GF1: 25 (down from 27), NEX5N: 32 remains the same. Not sure what that means – the activity factor for flickr’s most popular camera (the Canon 5D Mark II) is 22 with 3,777 daily posters.
I’ll try to update this data quarterly. Let me know if I don’t. There are also some interesting new mirrorless models on the way – including Canon who’s finally joining the crowd.
