
The most commonly used photo camera-lens combinations - Slashas
https://explorecams.com/stats/top/models
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cs702
The biggest issue I see with this data is that it gives me a snapshot of which
camera systems have been most popular with photographers _in the past_ , which
doesn't necessarily reflect what photographers want to buy today.

For example, many mirrorless camera systems are gaining market share but are
badly under-represented on this website.[1]

It would be more useful to see _how the figures have changed over time_.

[1] For example, right now, five out of the top 10 best-selling cameras at B&H
Photo & Video are mirrorless.

~~~
ekianjo
Most mirrorless camera are not full frame though and are probably just side
cameras for photographers.

~~~
Jedd
Hmmm. Most full frame cameras are not medium format[1] ( ~ 24x36 to 100x125)

And most medium format cameras aren't large format [2] ( > 100x125)

Full frame has its fans, and there's certainly some photography styles that
_benefit_ from it, but all these formats are fairly arbitrary - especially
full frame.

Highly recommend Full Frame Wars [3] that includes a history (and some myth-
busting) of the format - all the way back to a 1891, when an interest in
having 16 frames per foot of rolling film was the basis of this particular
(and now 125 year old) standard.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_\(film\))
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format)
[3]
[http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/FullFrameWars.html](http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/FullFrameWars.html)

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no_protocol
The top lens for the top camera (Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L
IS) is sold in a packaged kit with the body.

This lens is...not very good.

It's only popular because they're bundled.

I think this site is useful, however. It gives you a very quick way to
navigate to a whole collection of photos of any body/lens combination. If
you're in the market for a body/lens, this seems like a good source to go to.
No side-by-side comparisons like an edited review, but at least an overview.

Do professionals actually post photos to the sites this scrapes from, or is it
mostly amateurs using expensive gear?

~~~
itsjustjoe
What? the 24-105 is an L lens and a solid walk around choice. I bought the
24-105 well before upgrading my body. Are you thinking of the 24-105mm
f/3.5-5.6?

~~~
ghaff
Yeah, I think parent is confused. This is a $1,000 lens--definitely not a kit
lens.

[EDIT: Apparently it was available as a bundle at one point.]

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chris_7
It is a kit lens in the literal sense, I purchased one with a 6D, but not in
the pejorative sense like the 18-55mm.

~~~
ghaff
:-) My bad. I didn't check. I have a Mark III but I didn't buy it with a lens
so assumed they bundled something cheaper.

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chris_7
I'm surprised the 40mm f2.8 isn't more popular, it takes great pictures, it's
cheap, and physically using it is great (it really transforms how the camera
feels because it's so small). Strongly prefer it to the 50mm f1.8, unless it's
super dark.

~~~
bobbles
If you read pretty much any guide online about 'what lens should i get for my
dslr' you'll pretty much always see whatever the 50mm f1.8 for your camera
model at the top of the list. So im guessing lots of people just buy them due
to that

~~~
ghaff
A 50mm f1.8 or f1.4 was pretty much the historic "normal" lens to get. The
40mm pancake parent mentioned is a nice lens. I'm not sure lens speed matter
as much as it once did though. And I'm also not convinced that a pancake lens
makes all that much a difference when the body is already pretty big and
heavy.

That said. It's a decent lens. If I could only find what gear pocket mine got
shoved into :-)

~~~
antongribok
It's my opinion that the 40mm f/2.8 from Canon is a much better lens than
either the 50mm f/1.8 II or the 50mm f/1.4 (haven't tried the STM version) in
terms of color, contrast, distortion, and as the GGP said, size. Although it's
not a very fair comparison, because these 50mm lenses are both much older.
This is one of my favorite travel lenses, and I do agree that it changes the
camera handling (for the better). I love how it goes with a 5D.

However, I think one of the biggest reasons the 50mm gets recommended so much
is because it is such a huge difference for someone to go from a f/3.5-5.6 kit
lens to an f/1.4 or an f/1.8 in terms of DoF, and for beginners trying to move
up this can be a huge eye opener.

Personally I think the 40mm is much easier to use, and it's certainly much
sharper wide open.

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paulmd
The reason the 50/1.8 gets recommended is cost, full stop. It's the only prime
in Canon's lineup that you can get for $100, and as a prime it is naturally
better than all but the most expensive zooms. 80mm equivalent is a good length
for portraiture but it's not particularly good as an all-around focal length.

Nikon has an APS-C format normal lens and _that_ is the standard
recommendation for that system. Pentax has a 35/2.4 lens and _that_ is the
standard recommendation for that system. Canon's lack of an affordable normal
prime is a glaring weakness in the lineup and one of the reasons I eventually
moved on to a NEX - you could get a 35mm and a 19mm prime for less than I
could get a single 40/2.8 in the Canon system.

The 40/2.8 is the closest thing to a normal lens in Canon's lineup. But 40mm
is still significantly longer than 35mm, and since Canon uses smaller 1.6x
crop sensors instead of the industry-standard 1.5x crop sensors we are talking
about going from a 50mm equivalent on other systems to a 64mm equivalent on
Canon. That's still too long for a normal lens, it's not particularly fast at
f/2.8, and it's more expensive than a Nikon 35/1.8 DX or a Pentax DA 35/2.4,
but it's the least-bad option in the Canon stable.

My personal opinion is that Canon's lineup is heavily geared towards
professional users, particularly full-frame users. They have nice L-series
glass and their primes are well-placed for full frame users, but they just
don't have many low-cost options for entry level users. There's no EF-S 12mm,
14mm 17mm, 22mm, or 32mm, all crucial focal lengths. Nor are there any cheap
APS-C long primes. And their electronic aperture impairs the ability to use
manual lenses like the excellent Samyang series, which could otherwise fill in
some of these gaps.

~~~
antongribok
My post was intended to support the original post in the thread and to gently
disagree with the post I was responding to.

While you bring up very good points I'm personally inclined to disagree on the
"cost" argument when comparing 50mm f/1.8 and 40mm f/2.8, simply because by
the time the 40mm pancake was released the 50mm f/1.8 went up in price from
$80 to $125. Very shortly after it was released the price for 40mm went from
$199 down to $149 for a while and at that price the difference between $125
and $149 is negligible. At this price point the 40mm is arguably of a higher
"value" than the 50mm unless you really need f/1.8.

In the first sentence of your post you used present tense and I'd like to
point out that the 50mm f/1.8 has been discontinued, so anyone continuing to
recommend this lens is giving dated advice (not saying you are).

Currently the 3 cheapest Canon primes are the 50mm f/1.8 STM at $125, the EF-S
24mm f/2.8 STM at $149, and the 40mm f/2.8 at $199.

I currently recommend people the 40mm if asked about what to get for a full
frame or the 24mm f/2.8 STM for APS-C. The 24mm on APS-C gives you a nice
38.4mm equivalent and I don't know why you've dismissed this fine lens (I hope
that's no too harsh).

Interestingly Yongnuo released the YN 50mm f/1.8 for $50 that looks almost
identical to the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II that's been discontinued.

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cag_ii
Neat list, but What exactly does "Most Commonly Used Camera-Lens Combinations"
mean in this context? I find it highly suspect the the most common camera/lens
combo is the $3000 US EOS 5D Mk III kit; I'd expect the more affordable
D3200/EOS t5 camera range to be more commonly used. Some more information
about the methodology used would be helpful.

~~~
ghaff
I had the same thought. Unless I missed it, the site doesn't give the source
of the data. I find it very suspect (as in not representative of broader use)
that the top two cameras are late model Canon prosumer+ full-frame bodies.

[ADDED: It actually appears that this does align with Flickr stats--which is,
of course, not what you'd find on Facebook or other more mass market sites.]

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hoopism
If you look at the source for the images it's public repo's for images
(500px.com, flickr...). They usually publish the exif which contains this
data.

My guess is that it's based on frequency. What is unknown is whether the
sample takes more prolific photographers into account when calculating
"common". 5000 people may all own same camera and take single public image as
oppose to single photographer who takes 5000 images.

Very cool but would love more details on how they are defining their criteria.

~~~
ghaff
I would assume it's based on the number of uploaded photos taken with those
cameras. I'm not sure the Flickr API, for example, even gives you a good way
to look at it per user. (You'd basically need to iterate over users and only
count a camera model once per user.)

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paulmd
This measurement is going to be biased somewhat towards zoom lenses because
they cover multiple focal lengths in a single lens. In other words you might
have a 24mm, a 50mm, and a 70mm prime lens that each get 1/3 of your time but
if you were using a 24-70mm lens instead then all of those would count as one
lens.

It's by no means entirely inaccurate, zoom lenses are very popular now, and
there's still some merit in seeing which lenses are actually on cameras most
of the time. Just bear in mind that slicing them in this way is inherently a
little biased to certain lenses rather than slicing them based on some other
dimension like focal length of the shot.

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gaius
For decades the answer has been a "normal" lens e.g. 50mm on what is now
called "full frame", 80mm on medium format.

~~~
jrapdx3
With the wide assortment of imaging sensor sizes, the "normal" focal length
varies accordingly. Probably better to think of it as "angle of view",
typically ~45-50 degrees for a normal lens. That's usually the easiest lens to
design, so typically the most compact and inexpensive lenses are "normal"
primes.

Today the most popular "normals" are moderate, mid-range zooms, equivalent to
28-80mm or so on a 35mm equiv sensor.

~~~
dom0
For some SLR systems 50 mm (or more often 51.6 mm) isn't actually all that
easy (in the 60s), eg. Nikon with a comparatively large flange back distance.
We still see some artifacts of this today, e.g. the classic short reproduction
macro was always around 55-60 mm, because it's a spot where the lens design is
easier.

~~~
paulmd
Even the number "50mm" is massively debated. The 51.6mm number is drawn from
the focal length of classic Leica normal lenses, which is 100% arbitrary.
There's pretty strong arguments that something more like 43mm is the normal
focal length for 35mm.

And designing lenses with adequate coverage for 35mm as well as a sufficient
flange distance to clear a SLR mirror was definitely a problem back in the
day. Older "normal" lenses for SLRs used to commonly be 55mm or even 58mm.
Wide angle-lenses suffered a similar problem, and for a great while
rangefinder lenses (or similar lenses that protruded into the mirror cavity of
a SLR) were the dominant options for wide angle photography.

It took quite a while to develop good "retrofocal" lenses where the optical
center is actually behind the lens (basically the opposite of the telephoto
lens where the optical center is in front of the lens). The very first
examples of the type are the Angénieux retrofocus and the Voigtländer
Prominent's Skoparon, both introduced in 1950. The Skoparon design was
essentially a Tessar lens backwards and went on to be one of the earliest
wide-angle lenses used in SLRs, notably as the Asahi Pentax 35mm f/3.5. It had
an extremely long lifespan, in its medium-format variant (Pentax 75mm f/4.5)
it continued to be produced until around 2000. The funny thing is it all
happened because Voigtländer patented it for rangefinders but neglected to
patent it for SLRs!

The other thing to remember about 50mm-ish macro lenses is that it's still
somewhat reasonable to build a helicoid that can get out to 1:1 reproduction
without extension tubes. I have a 50mm and a 90mm that will both go to 1:1
reproduction on their own, and I can tell you that while the 50mm may be
somewhat ungainly the 90mm is absolutely absurd when you crank it all the way
out. The 50mm uses a double helicoid, the 90mm is actually _four_ helicoids
running inside each other.

~~~
dom0
Yes, the old unit focusing macro designs can look rather weird and somewhat
unstable when fully "racked out". With internal focusing this has been
"fixed", although they still need a lot of displacement of the focusing group
(in the Nikon 200/4 AF for example it's about five cm if I remember right,
which is _a lot_ for an IF design). Most macros still have a lot of external
movement, but internally floating elements reduce the required displacement
still. (E.g. Tokina 100/2.8, about 6 cm displacement of the main groups, since
helicoil - a cam our two for tiny adjustments of two other groups.

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jjp
The blog post about the infographic says that it's a crawl of Flickr, 500px
and Pixabay. [1]

If you drill through to the camera/lens combination you actually get to see
some of the photos that have been crawled, and then it will take you back to
the original source.

[1] [https://explorecams.com/blog/](https://explorecams.com/blog/)

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Sanddancer
Pages like this make me really convinced I need to print up frame cards for
the various lenses I use. I use a lot of vintage glass when I'm shooting that
obviously won't have Exif data. It would be useful for later browsing to know
at a glance whether I was shooting with a Jupiter 3 or a Pentax Super Takumar.

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djulius
Some strange data appears on this site, the second most popular for the full-
frame D600 is a 2004 DX (notably bad) lens. No mentally sane person would ever
commit such as sacrilege.

Didn't go further to investigate but this puts a serious doubt on the
representativity of the data.

~~~
FireBeyond
I've seen plenty of EOS 7Ds and 5D Mk II/IIIs with Canon kit lenses on them
(of the ~$200 3.5-6.3 variety). I've personally had to tell people who came to
me for purchase advise to buy either the 'enthusiast' or 'pro' tier lenses and
completely ignore the bottom end.

Too many people "blow their wad" on the body and then find themselves only
able to afford a couple of hundred more for a lens, rather than investing in
the glass and upgrading the body (which will get upgrades every few years).

So unfortunately, I can absolutely believe that.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah. The long term investment is clearly lenses while the body should be
considered as disposable.

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ChuckMcM
Interesting look at some public data but ultimately not all that useful. My
dad has done photography for a couple decades and he really swaps lenses for
different tasks. The is no single perfect lens.

~~~
ptaipale
I think that's what you can deduce about the data as well. I didn't look at
Canon figures as I have Nikon myself, but that data clearly showed that entry-
level cameras are used with kit lenses, and pro cameras are used with a larger
variety of high-quality lenses.

D3100 and D5000 go with the 18-55 kit lens (which is in fact a very good lens
considering the price) and have a third of their pictures taken with these.
D7000 and D90, being somewhat more advanced hobbyist models, go with their
respective kit lens (18-105) with 20-30 % share.

Full-frame bodies (D600, D700, D800 etc) most often have the professional
24-70/2.8 lens, but the share is still smaller, indicating that a larger
variety of different lenses is in use, as you would expect with pro/prosumer
cameras.

~~~
adekok
> that data clearly showed that entry-level cameras are used with kit lenses,
> and pro cameras are used with a larger variety of high-quality lenses.

i.e. perhaps what's more interesting, is the _variety_ of lenses used by a
particular photographer. If it's mostly one camera and one lens, we're pretty
sure that the photographer has a package, and is just taking simple pictures.

If the photographer has a range of lenses for different shots, we're pretty
sure he's choosing the best lenses for the job. Which means concentrating on
the distribution per photographer, not per lens.

The page should also show the distribution of combinations among
photographers. Most photographers will be at 1-2 lenses. The better
photographers will use more lenses.

In all likelihood, the _less popular_ camera + lens combination is the better
one.

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cloudjacker
I feel like we are overdue for a Sony A7 upgrade announcement

