Here They Are, Your Favorite Digital Cameras

The other day, we asked our readers to name their favorite digital cameras, past or present. The request garnered 701 comments, which is (by a multiple of about three) the most comments ever on a TOP post. Although I did grease the skids a time or two with reminders.

Of those, 650 comments, or 93%, were responsive.

Then I asked our friend Sarge, a reader from the Philippines who has a talent for tabulating data, to compile the results. (I'm paying him, as it was a lot of work. He's still done us a huge favor in doing this, though, so grateful thanks and props to Sarge.) He's working on several more interesting presentations of the data, including one that incorporates the film camera responses. Those we will present at a later date.

Where people named several cameras without indicating order of preference (many people did the latter), Sarge counted only the first one named.

Note that this was an informal, casual, friendly, non-rigorous—and non-binding!—poll. Fun anyway.

Here are the initial results, first the top 13 individual models mentioned by the most readers (note that the top 13 models only accounted for 223 mentions out of the total 650) and then overall by brand (note that "D3/" includes the D3, D3s, and D3X but that the different generations of Canon 5D and the Fuji X100 and X100s are separated).

TOP readers' all-time favorite digital cameras by model

Favorites by brand share

More data soon!

Mike
(Thanks to Sarge)

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jim: "Wow, I would think one would treat the Fuji X100 and X100s the same as the Nikon D3/3s/3xs. If you did that the Fujis would total 43% which is a wooki-wee bit more than the Nikon D700 now shown as the favorite model. Recount! There's chads in the pockets of his Nikon coat...wait is that a U.S. Olympic Scoring Committee Member on that coat?"

Mike replies: I hear you, but it's not a contest, it's just information. You can do with it what you will. If you prefer to lump the X100/s together, that's easy to do.

I do think the showing of the X100/s is remarkable given the great variety and competition in the marketplace.

Bron: "I'm devastated, lost, anguished, bereft; my camera isn't even a...a...a blip, oh.... Woe is me. Just more indisputable evidence that, gasp, I'm not really a photographer, woe!"

Mike replies: Nope, still just information...not a directive!

JohnMFlores: "It's confirmed—TOP readers live in an alternate universe!"

Mike replies: That might be just me.

David Dyer-Bennet: "Oh dear. I own both the first and second-ranking camera from this list. Am I becoming mainstream in my old age? Yaaarrrrghhhh!"

Mike replies: You're becoming mainstream—but only in an alternate universe.

Clayton: "This exercise will wind up costing me $1,300. It got me thinking about the wonderful lens of the Minolta 7Hi. Closest thing today is the Sony RX10. Of the old cameras mentioned in the comments to the original post, several were different versions of the Minolta bridge series using the same lens."

Comments

[craig]

much more evenly distributed than you would imagine.

the next question might be...what did you shoot with today/this week/this month?

i've found the difference betweem like and use to be a pretty solid indicator of where things are going.

[Struan]

The really interesting question is how many people voted for a camera which is not their most recent one.

[beuler]

It jumps out at me that if the X100 and X100s were tabulated together (a la D3), then it would come our far far ahead of any other camera. But then the 5D (i, ii and iii) would come in a close second if bunched together. I mean this in good fun as was the intention of the excercise - I don't own any Fujifilm cameras. And I think the data is well presented, this is not a suggestion to change anything.

[David Bostedo]

Seems to me that, looking at this data, a pretty accurate answer to "What is your favorite digital camera?" would be "Whatever I purchased most recently."

Either that, or recent (say, within the last 3 years) purchasers were more likely to respond.

[Hmm, I don't know. The Nikon D700 (#1) came out in 2008 and the Canon 5D (#4) came out in 2005. The latter is a year and a half short of a decade ago.

Recency effects might be rationally explained by a) cameras getting better over time and b) better technology becoming more affordable. --Mike]

[Jim Metzger]

Yeah, I won!

[William]

While the sample is certainly difficult to define, I would think Nikon's and Canon's Sr. Management would become physically ill when they realize what Olympus, Panasonic and Fujifilm have done to their market share.

I would love to hear how Nikon's and Canon's Product Development would explain these results to their Board and shareholders. The X100 didn't even exist about 40 months ago and the X-Pro 1 is about 12 months newer. Yikes!

The results make Nikon look particularly silly. They never followed up on a D700 successor, decided APS-C did not deserve world-class primes, and thought the CX line would take market share back from m4/3. Three strikes and you're out!

[James Sinks]

I'd be interested to see a breakdown by camera series, i.e. Canon 5D series, Canon 1D series, Nikon D# series, Nikon D### series, and so on.

[Frank]

It's also interesting to see results by categories, like DSLR, Mirrorless, Compact, or FF DSLR, APS-C DSLR, FF Mirrorless, APS-C Mirrorless, M4/3, Large sensor Compact, Small sensor compact, etc.

Yes, it is fun after all.

[Greger]

Why would D3, D3s and D3X be counted as one, while the X100 and X100s are counted separately?

[Steve]

I was one of the D700 lovers. I bought one of the last ones available new for $2199. Some will say I overpaid because I could get one used for less. I have no regrets as this camera is worth every penny and then some. There's a very good reason the D800 is not considered the D700 replacement by many of those who actually used one. Those gigantic pixels give images a very different feel.

[Lynn]

"TOP readers' all-time favorite digital cameras by model"

Mike, can I suggest you indicate this is a count of responses for each model shown in the chart? The figures add up to well over 100, so I'm sure it's not each model's percentage share of total responses.

Perhaps: "highest counts for TOP readers' all-time favorite digital cameras by model"

[Manuel]

Meh. I shoot film. I'm too bigoted to care for digital cameras.
I wish this was representative of the camera market, though.

[dave brown]

More interesting if you add the Fuji's.

[robert e]

Thank you, Mike and Sarge, for the tasty graphs. You know, it might be very interesting to see a comparison of each brand's (or even camera's) market share vs its TOP mindshare.

[Bryce Lee]

That is amazing, especially given the "age" of the digital imagery represented. Wonder if a similar poll could ever be done for film cameras; which albeit had far for manufacturers.

[Earl Dunbar]

Given Olympus' corporate meltdown a few years ago and Fuji's near non-existence in the pro/prosumer market until recently, I'd say this is pretty amazing

[Frank]

While it is fun to read the statistic results, it is more interesting to read the comments. It seems to me that everyone has his/her own interpretation, or like to have a certain way of interpretations of the data. ^_^

[Josef]

It would be interesting to see how this changes over time. Maybe a yearly survey? For instance, it will be interesting to see how many mentions the Fuji X-T1 gets once it is in more photographers' hands for awhile.

[Stephen Scharf]

Interesting analysis, but I'd like to know what the units of measure represent the X-axis.

[Auntipode]

No vote from me. Until you posed the question, I hadn't realized I've never really liked a camera. Perhaps one day I'll find one I actually like. I can hope.

[David]

I am guessing that Nikon and Canon aren't as worried as some commenters have suggested. It's pretty clear that this is not very representative of the market as a whole, with, for instance, Leica with 8%. Though I'm sure that Leica would be pretty happy if it were representative!

David

[Paul Macdonald]

Very interesting. I'd be curious to see the full list, since if I read the graphs correctly, the bar graph is reporting numbers of responses. This leaves a substantial majority of the responses in the single digits and spread over at least 40 other cameras. Another strong indication that you've got a diverse readership.

[hugh crawford]

The fact that so many "obsolete" cameras ranked so much higher than their same brand replacements is very interesting.

I'm still using a thirteen year old Canon 1Ds for commercial work because it's more than good enough for author photos and the clients figure anything that big and heavy must be good. Sold the 5DII for more than I bought it for thanks to the widespread disappointment among filmmakers about the 5DIII.

They both sucked for personal work, that's why they are "professional" cameras I suppose.

I just noticed that ownership or extended use of a camera was not a stipulation, yet there is a complete absence in the rankings of the Leica S2 and the Hubble Space Telescope.

[D. Hufford.]

I could have added my old Oly OM-1 from back in my high school days had you asked about film. However, it would only be a favorite because it was my first SLR, because it had the best viewfinder I have ever used on any SLR and because it was straightforward to use. Certainly not because of any imagined superiority of film over digital. I used film back in the day when nobody considered the mere fact that one took photos using film that they were magical or had "soul." No, if your photos sucked, you could not blame it on the medium. Nor could you claim they were good merely because of the medium. Unlike today.

[Boglev]

So, mine is on third place...

[Tim]

Seems I've been increasingly shying away from CaNikon then...

It would be interesting to see the above charts with numbers divided by the age of the models, either since availability or some notional peak of sales.

[Ari]

In the brand breakdown chart, 74 answers are categorized as "Others". Do we know how many other brands are represented there? I mean, with more than 10% of responses in that category, and 8 brands already called out individually, how many more digital camera brands could there be?

[Gingerbaker]

Dewey wins!

[Dan Daniel]

The Pentax slice should follow the Olympus slice in the clockwise rotation based on descending quantity.

[Rich Hume]

Might be interesting to compile a list of the least liked cameras.

[Dennis]

I'm a little surprised by these results, though I'm not sure what I would have guessed them to be. I suppose the D700 shouldn't surprise me, nor the X100(s) other than how high they are on the list. The EM5 surprises me, though in hindsight, it makes sense. So if the top 13 represent 223 out of 650, and I can assume that the remainder have less than 10 votes each, then if they average 5 votes each, that would be 85 camera models ... I'm guessing somewhere between 50 and 100 ? You did ask film users to list their favorite film camera, but still, that's a lot of diversity, when I would think there would be just so many "cult classics".
The low percentages for Nikon and Canon should be a little distressing to those companies. It's a scientifically unsound poll, but you'd think they'd covet the "AdAms" (to steal from your latest post) that frequent a site like yours.

[kirk]

Had to chuckle to myself as none of the cameras I own and use are on the list. Outlier-tographer?

[Wait, I thought you had three NEX-7s! No? --Mike]

[Eamon Hickey]

@ William:

While the sample is certainly difficult to define, I would think Nikon's and Canon's Sr. Management would become physically ill when they realize what Olympus, Panasonic and Fujifilm have done to their market share.

Well, not to be a noodge (oh well, too late to worry about that now), but of course Nikon and Canon's senior management know exactly what anyone has done to their market share and exactly what they've done to the market share of others. They spend a fortune on professional market research. They could tell us market share details over time, by segment, by region, by gender, by demographic, by retail channel, and by dozens of other criteria. They have 1000X more real information than you or me.

What these fun results show is information about TOP's esteemed readers, not about the overall camera business.

[Very true. Our poll is not only a tiny data point, it's a crude one. Which is why I keep labeling it an "informal" poll. --Mike]

[William]

Eamon,

No worries... noodge away. These are discussions.

All I will say is Nikon's stock-price chart speaks for itself.

[What chart are you looking at? I don't know where to find that kind of information. --Mike]

[Steve Jacob]

Quite a remarkable result for Fuji when you think about it. From nowhere a few years ago...

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Mike, I've got a Nikon stock chart at http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/7731

[Michael Bearman]

The only proper conclusion from your poll - otherwise than the entertainment of you and your readership - is that your readers (as well as being incredibly handsome and intelligent) are actually photographers, who prefer equipment useful to their needs, which is making creative images. Someone should send your poll to Nikon and Canon, et al, to direct them towards their market's desires, rather than their marketing departments' desires.

[Barry Reid]

I sense a bias towards 'cool' because I just don't believe Fuji has that big a share of the market. I also suspect that many of us are tolerating the cameras we most use, rather than loving them. Which makes me wonder what the answer would have be if the question what digital camera has been used to take your best shots?

[Ilkka]

I have one camera from that list and am thinking of getting another. But both are not the favorite I nominated that did not make it to the top 13. Ah well. Lies, damn lies, statistics.