Flickr is one of the most popular photo-sharing sites for amateur and professional photographers alike. The Yahoo-owned image service is loaded with top-notch shots from shutterbugs around the world but the hard data behind those images tells a story of where they originated that might surprise you.
As part of its annual Year in Review, Flickr takes a look at the cameras and camera types used to upload to its platform. For 2016, a whopping 48 percent of images and videos uploaded were captured with a smartphone, up from 39 percent a year ago.
DSLR camera usage, meanwhile, dropped from 31 percent in 2015 to just 25 percent this year while point-and-shoot camera usage also slid, from 25 percent a year ago to 21 percent. The one constant on Flickr's platform was mirrorless cameras which accounted for three percent of uploads, just as they did in 2015.
Drilling down a bit deeper, Flickr reports that the top camera brand with a share of 47 percent is Apple (no doubt mostly iPhones as people have stopped the silly habit of taking photos with iPads... right?). Canon finished in second place with a 24 percent share while Nikon took home the bronze with 18 percent.
A decade ago, you'd have laughed at the notion that camera phones would be more popular than titans Canon and Nikon. My, how times have changed.
As an added bonus, Flickr has compiled what it says are the Top 25 photos of 2016, some of which have been embedded here.
Images courtesy Young Ko and Chris Frank, Flickr