Image Statistics

For quite some time, I have been wanting to gather the EXIF data from all of my published images, and produce some statistics on various criteria such as exposure settings and equipment used.

During a recent period of renewed creative energy in the form of computer programming rather than photography, over the past month I finally developed automated code-based functionality in my site to extract, analyse and present what I consider to be some interesting statistical data about my collection of published images.

By its very nature, some of this data can be quite dry and geeky; but the results do show some interesting facts in terms of exposure and equipment preferences, and in some cases the results were surprising to me.

Note: If you do not care what equipment I use, what exposure or stylistic photographic preferences I have, or you do not care for numeric data generally, it is advisable to skip this long article; but if that kind of geeky thing does appeal to you, keep reading.

Presently, my site gathers data and presents tabular data, which lists from most frequent to least frequent, the numbers of images captured:

• with a particular camera;
• with a particular lens;
• with a particular telephoto extender;
• within a particular focal range;
• at a particular focal length;
• at a particular shutter speed;
• at a particular aperture;
• at a particular ISO sensitivity;
• during a particular year;
• during a particular month; and
• on a particular day.

I have also produced what I call a ‘time trend‘, in the form of a table showing the number of images shot by month and year.

In this article I am going to break it down and explain the trends I see.

What this exercise has shown me is that the raw numeric data alone does not tell the whole story; there are some ‘human’ elements which can explain why a certain exposure setting or piece of camera equipment rates higher or lower in popularity than would otherwise be expected based on my knowledge of my preferences.

So, let us look at the trends.

At the time of writing this article, there are 1,600 images in my gallery, which were shot over an eleven-year period from 2005 to 2015.

Camera

I have owned three digital SLR cameras in that time.  Here is the breakdown by camera model:

#	Camera	Images
1	Canon EOS 5D	893
2	Canon EOS 5D Mark II	519
3	Canon EOS 20D	188

The Canon EOS 20D was my first DSLR, and I owned it for over three years.  I shot many images with it, but over the years I have deleted some of the images I published, as in those early years, I was an ‘anything and everything’ kind of photographer without much discernment.

My Canon EOS 5D lost its life to a rogue wave during a seascape shoot in 2010, and on the same day I replaced it with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  I owned it longer than my Canon EOS 20D, and owned it for a similar amount of time to my current camera (the antiquated but still as-useful-as-it-ever-was Canon EOS 5D Mark II), but much of what I shot with it was during a period of frequent activity and rapid development.  In other words, I shot a lot, and got better at it.

Most of my best work has been shot with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II, but over the past few years, as further analysis will show, my output in terms of quantity has significantly decreased, but my output in terms of quality has significantly increased.

This explains why my current camera is the least used.

Lens

I have owned many Canon EF lenses over the years, some of which I have sold.  I have also ocasionally used a few lenses I have never owned.

To me, the lens usage statistics are more interesting, and there are some surprising results, which can again be explained by ‘human’ factors or circumstance.

Here is the data:

#	Lens	Images
1	Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM	562
2	Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM	181
3	Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM	173
4	Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM	161
5	Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM	100
6	Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM	98
7	Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM	93
8	Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM	78
9	Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM	36
10	Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM	34
11	Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II	31
12	Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM	24
13	Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM	17
14	Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM	3
15	Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM	3
16	Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM	2
17	Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM	1
18	Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L	1
19	Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM	1
20	Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM	1

It is no surprise to me that my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM is the most frequently used lens of the 20 featured, as my main forms of photography over the years have been those which lend themselves well to ultra-wide focal lengths.

I have shot a lot of architecture, cityscape, landscape and seascape images, particularly since 2008, so that lens occupies the top spot in terms of usage.

What could be considered surprising, but in hindsight not so surprising, is the presence of the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens in second place.

I sold that lens nearly seven years ago (and ceased using it up to a year before I sold it), but I bought it in 2005 on the day of its release, and, as explained earlier, I shot anything and everything in those days.  It was my ‘walk-around’ lens, and hence it got a lot of use.  The last published image I shot with that lens was in November of 2007, which was a long time ago now; yet still features prominently due to my experience and the development stage at the time.

I will not go into detail about all 20 of these lenses, particularly those with which I shot less than a handful of images, as those lenses were borrowed or tried; but I did want to draw attention to my two super-telephoto lenses, as by nature of my overall subject matter, they are not commonly used, but some particular circumstances have made them surprisingly prominent.

The first is my Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM.  I have owned it since 2007, but it gained its most significant usage half a decade later in 2012 when we visited Africa for the first time and fell in love with wildlife and the photography thereof.

In the early days it was used sparingly and for nothing particularly serious.  A few years later I went through a phase of aviation photography, during which it was used more; but our South Africa trip in 2012 was where that lens came to shine.

That leads me to my Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM.  It presently sits in 8th place, yet it is my most recently-purchased lens — I have only owned it for over a year.  What drove it so high up, relatively, was our trip to Kenya, where I used it, by my rough estimate, 98% of the time.  I took two other lenses  (16-35/2.8L II and 70-200/2.8L IS) and also used a 300/2.8L IS for a few shots, but the 400/2.8L IS pretty much lived on the camera.

This example shows how a lens, which has spent the least amount of time in my rig, can achieve such relative prominence due to one significant event; namely, a wildlife safari in Kenya.

Telephoto Extender

There is not much to say about the prevalence of my Canon telephoto extenders, as there are only two models, they work only with particular Canon EF L-series lenses, and in my case, I tend to only use them with my two longest lenses.

All that can be said is that of the two telephoto extenders, the Canon Extender EF 2x II features more prominently, which can be explained by the two Africa trips we have done.  On the first trip to South Africa, I used it with my 300/2.8L IS, giving me 600mm of focal length (ideal for wildlife photography); and on the second trip to Kenya, I used it with my 400/2.8L IS, giving me an even better 800mm of focal length — absolutely wonderful for frame-filling images of big cats and birds.

#	Telephoto Extender	Images
1	Canon Extender EF 2x II	98
2	Canon Extender EF 1.4x II	54

Focal Range

This particular category is amongst the most interesting to me.

In developing my statistics gathering and reporting system, I initially only looked at actual focal lengths; but further into the project (actually, after ‘completion’), it dawned on me that breaking down focal lengths into distinct focal ranges would be more useful and revealing than reporting on single focal lengths alone, especially as the presence of zooms can mean lots of isolated cases of esoteric ‘no man’s land’ focal lengths appearing (such as 33mm or 98mm).

I used Canon’s definitions of focal ranges as the baseline for my own categorisation of focal ranges, and crunched the data to produce the following table:

#	Focal Range	Images
1	Ultra-Wide (16-23mm)	485
2	Short Telephoto (70-135mm)	350
3	Wide (24-35mm)	285
4	Medium Telephoto (136-399mm)	227
5	Long Telephoto (400-800mm)	196
6	Standard (36-69mm)	57

I have known for years where my preferences lie in terms of focal lengths.

I like ultra-wide and ultra-long focal lengths, and not much in between.

My architecture, cityscape, landscape and seascape images were mostly shot with an ultra-wide lens, which easily explains the occupation of the number one position by the ultra-wide category.

The second spot is occupied by short telephoto ranges, which I specifically use (particularly the 85mm and 135mm focal lengths) for portraiture and still life.  I have many portrait images in my gallery, which allows that focal range its prominence.

The standard focal range is my least used focal range, which is no surprise, as for years I have regarded the 50mm focal length with complete disdain, and have also boycotted ‘standard’ focal lengths, as, quite frankly, they bore me.  Given the standard focal length of 50mm more or less replicates what the human eye can natively see, it has no interest, as it is neither wide and expansive, or long and detail-revealingly tight.

While I have owned both a standard zoom and a 50mm lens in the past, for most of the time I have had no lenses with focal lengths between 35mm and 70mm.  I just have no use for them, and my subject interests do not require or lend themselves to such focal lengths.

Focal Length

As outlined in the previous section, statistics about focal length ranges are more useful and revealing than statistics about individual focal lengths, particularly as there are over 700 available amongst the lenses I own or have owned; but for the sake of completeness, here are the statistics:

#	Focal Length	Images
1	16mm	430
2	35mm	137
3	85mm	125
4	24mm	102
5	135mm	98
6	300mm	93
7	600mm	73
8	200mm	66
9	400mm	51
10	420mm	43
11	105mm	37
12	70mm	35
13	50mm	33
14	180mm	30
15	800mm	24
16	23mm	14
17	25mm	13
18	40mm	11
19	18mm	11
20	17mm	10
21	27mm	9
22	21mm	7
23	28mm	7
24	100mm	7
25	19mm	7
26	140mm	6
27	95mm	6
28	130mm	6
29	32mm	6
30	26mm	5
31	560mm	5
32	115mm	5
33	252mm	4
34	165mm	4
35	145mm	4
36	73mm	4
37	67mm	4
38	125mm	4
39	29mm	3
40	173mm	3
41	90mm	3
42	185mm	3
43	120mm	3
44	20mm	3
45	75mm	3
46	22mm	3
47	80mm	3
48	88mm	2
49	45mm	2
50	58mm	2
51	195mm	2
52	160mm	2
53	65mm	2
54	78mm	2
55	150mm	2
56	170mm	1
57	270mm	1
58	220mm	1
59	31mm	1
60	168mm	1
61	72mm	1
62	96mm	1
63	55mm	1
64	104mm	1
65	153mm	1
66	148mm	1
67	84mm	1
68	98mm	1
69	190mm	1
70	110mm	1
71	60mm	1
72	33mm	1
73	30mm	1
74	360mm	1
75	92mm	1
76	47mm	1

The main points of interest in this table are the double-digit and triple-digit occurrences towards the top of the table.

16mm is by no surprise my most prolific focal length, due to my architecture, cityscape, landscape and seascape photography.

Moderate telephoto and long telephoto focal lengths also tend to dominate, which is driven by my subject choice, and also the fact that most of my lenses are primes.  The use of telephoto extenders on the big lenses, and the use of focal lengths at the extreme ends of a few zooms, also contribute to the particular focal lengths and frequencies documented in the top 20 rows of the table.

Shutter Speed

My shutter speed usage is reported in a rather long table, too.

I have not drawn any analytical conclusions from this particular data, but apparently I favour 1/200th of a second.

Of interest towards the bottom of the table is the occasional very long shutter speeds I have used.

My longest exposure was just over an hour, and there have been a few over the years than ran for single-digit minutes, and one which ran for ten minutes.

The 30-second shutter speed has achieved sufficient prominence, and otherwise most shutter speeds are in the middle-of-the-road territory of up to 1/500th of a second.

#	Shutter Speed	Images
1	1/200th of a second	114
2	1/125th of a second	77
3	1/160th of a second	77
4	30 seconds	62
5	1/500th of a second	55
6	1/250th of a second	52
7	1/100th of a second	52
8	1/320th of a second	50
9	1/640th of a second	44
10	1/400th of a second	43
11	1/50th of a second	41
12	1/60th of a second	37
13	1/1,600th of a second	36
14	1/80th of a second	36
15	1/1,250th of a second	34
16	1/2,000th of a second	29
17	1/40th of a second	29
18	2 seconds	28
19	1/800th of a second	28
20	1/1,000th of a second	28
21	1/2,500th of a second	27
22	5 seconds	26
23	4 seconds	26
24	15 seconds	26
25	1.3 seconds	25
26	1/25th of a second	23
27	8 seconds	23
28	2 minutes	22
29	3.2 seconds	22
30	1 second	21
31	10 seconds	20
32	0.3 seconds	19
33	1/8th of a second	18
34	1/30th of a second	18
35	0.6 seconds	18
36	1/15th of a second	17
37	1/20th of a second	17
38	1/4th of a second	17
39	1 minute	17
40	2.5 seconds	16
41	0.5 seconds	16
42	1/6th of a second	15
43	1.6 seconds	14
44	0.8 seconds	14
45	6 seconds	14
46	13 seconds	14
47	1/13th of a second	13
48	20 seconds	13
49	1/3,200th of a second	13
50	1/10th of a second	11
51	25 seconds	10
52	4 minutes	8
53	1/8,000th of a second	8
54	1/4,000th of a second	8
55	1/5th of a second	7
56	1/5,000th of a second	6
57	0.4 seconds	6
58	45 seconds	5
59	5 minutes	4
60	3 minutes	4
61	1/6,400th of a second	3
62	6 minutes	2
63	1 minute and 20 seconds	2
64	19 seconds	2
65	7 minutes	2
66	1 minute and 30 seconds	2
67	1 hour and 7 seconds	1
68	3 minutes and 32 seconds	1
69	2 minutes and 28 seconds	1
70	10 minutes	1
71	6 minutes and 15 seconds	1
72	15 minutes and 24 seconds	1
73	15 minutes and 1 second	1
74	2 minutes and 43 seconds	1
75	29 seconds	1
76	10 minutes and 1 second	1
77	39 seconds	1
78	12 seconds	1
79	3 minutes and 7 seconds	1
80	55 seconds	1

Aperture

The statstics about my aperture choices are quite interesting — to me, at least — as they show that despite my preference for having the widest aperture in a given focal length, I do not always use those wide apertures.

Here is the breakdown:

#	Aperture	Images
1	f/8	332
2	f/2.8	239
3	f/5.6	233
4	f/11	214
5	f/4	132
6	f/9	71
7	f/2	66
8	f/1.4	48
9	f/1.8	38
10	f/13	34
11	f/1.2	32
12	f/6.3	27
13	f/10	21
14	f/16	20
15	f/7.1	16
16	f/3.5	12
17	f/14	12
18	f/3.2	11
19	f/4.5	10
20	f/5	8
21	f/1.6	5
22	f/20	5
23	f/2.2	4
24	f/18	3
25	f/22	3
26	f/2.5	3
27	f/32	1

The fastest lens I have is f/1.2, and the two longest focal lengths I have do not get any faster than f/2.8; yet f/8 seems to be my most frequent aperture.

Again, this is easily explained by my proliferation of wide-angle scenic images.  Even though I shoot these with my 16-35mm f/2.8 lens, I rarely ever use that lens’s maximum aperture; for in shooting architecture, cityscape, landscape and seascape images, I want a wide view with a deep depth of field and rich, sharp details from foreground to background, which calls for narrower apertures.

The difference between f/8 and f/11 is not great, but unsurprisingly f/11 is in the top five.

Another common aperture I use is f/2.8. I have four f/2.8 lenses, two of which are super-teles, which I almost always shoot wide-open.  I did not buy fast super-tele lenses to shoot at f/8!  My Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM also ostensibly gets used wide-open more often than not.

The moderate-to-slow aperture of f/5.6 also appears rather frequently, which I figure is likely to be the result of using my Canon Extender EF 2x II on my 300/2.8 and 400/2.8, giving me 600mm at f/5.6 and 800mm at f/5.6 respectively.

I also use f/5.6 frequently for portraiture.  Even though my Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens is my go-to lens for portraits, I do not frequently shoot it wide-open.  Just because a lens can be shot at extremely wide apertures does not mean it always should be shot at such apertures.

Towards the bottom of the table are extremely narrow apertures, which I rarely ever use.  One must be careful to avoid diffraction caused by very narrow apertures, which leads to softening of fine details.  If a deep depth of field is required, there is little benefit in stopping down beyond f/11 or f/16 at wide focal lengths, as apertures of f/8 and f/11 tend to achieve a very acceptable compromise of sharpness and depth of field.

ISO Sensitivity

The statistical breakdown of my usage of different ISO sensitivity ratings was no surprise at all, but it remained interesting to see.

The top five spots are occupied, in order, a stop apart, starting from the lowest native ISO rating my cameras have offered.

I have known for years that I favour as low an ISO rating as possible, and for most of my photography, I can get away with this; but for wildlife and some other low-light photography (such as band/musician performance photography), I have simply needed to push the ISO rating to achieve acceptable shutter speeds to freeze movement in low light.

#	ISO Sensitivity	Images
1	100	835
2	200	342
3	400	170
4	800	58
5	1,600	35
6	50	31
7	320	24
8	1,250	22
9	500	19
10	1,000	17
11	640	13
12	3,200	11
13	160	11
14	250	6
15	6,400	4
16	125	2

According to the data, the most extreme ISO sensitivity rating I have used is 6,400.

Year of Capture

The next set of criteria I examined in my image statistics was time; specifically, which years, months and days of the week were more popular.

Again there are some unsurprising results, but a few others stood out as interesting.

#	Year of Capture	Images
1	2007	334
2	2008	304
3	2006	212
4	2012	189
5	2009	183
6	2010	113
7	2015	101
8	2011	67
9	2013	52
10	2014	33
11	2005	12

Over a ten-year period, my most frequent activity happened in 2006, 2007 and 2008.  It was during this time that I rapidly developed my interest in photography, and spent many weekends shooting, as well as travelling domestically on photography-centric trips.

I was also a more generalist photographer, shooting all manner of random subjects.  My style and subject matter preferences were only in their infancy of development.  All of this explains my proliferation at the time.

The year 2005 features as the least frequent year.  It was the year in which I first bought a DSLR.  I had been shooting digitally since 2002, but had not really established much of a presence online, and I did not consider photography a serious or even semi-serious interest.

From 2011 to 2015, my output took a serious decline in frequency.  I became less interested, de-motivated, occupied by other interests and priorities, and I had become extremely fussy about what I would shoot and when.

With the exception of 2005, for which very few images are still published online, my record low year is 2014.  I really shot very little, and my peaks of interest were few and far between, with only a few images here and there, most of which were captured during domestic trips we took, and during two photographic workshops that I attended during the year.

I had stopped shooting seascapes — in fact, my last seascape image was shot in 2013.  Even now, I remain disinterested in shooting seascapes, and it feels like a photographically significant chapter of life which has more or less closed.  I know I can always return, but for now the desire remains lacking.

The year 2012 is the exception to this long-running ‘lull’ period, in that a massive trip to South Africa was the main contributor towards my output that year.  I also had some frequent and productive seascape shoots that year as a result of a photography group with which I was quite actively involved at the time.

The present year, 2015, remains a low-output year, except for one event: our Kenya trip.  I shot thousands of images in Kenya, and have published 95 images at the time of writing.  Otherwise, I have shot only six images, and it was late in April before I shot the first!

Month of Capture

The breakdown of months is interesting from an academic viewpoint.

Here are the details:

#	Month of Capture	Images
1	June	270
2	January	193
3	October	167
4	April	157
5	December	141
6	May	134
7	March	112
8	September	104
9	July	95
10	February	92
11	August	71
12	November	64

I cannot offer any explanation as to why June is in the top spot; even though most of 2015‘s images were shot in June, it would still be a popular month.  In my part of the world, it is winter, and pre-dawn seascape shoots during winter mean being cold and wet.  Unappealing!

January‘s number-two place makes sense, as I tend to take time off work in December and January, and apparently I have been out and about over the years.

November is the least popular month, which is interesting, as 2015 has been a low-output year in terms of quantity, and November is only a month away!

Day of Capture

There is not much of interest or surprise in the statistical breakdown of days.

When I was a frequent (weekly, even!) seascape shooter, Sunday was my day.  Saturday follows very closely behind due to its status as a weekend day which is generally busier than Sunday.

#	Day of Capture	Images
1	Sunday	583
2	Saturday	561
3	Friday	145
4	Wednesday	103
5	Tuesday	85
6	Monday	72
7	Thursday	51

Time Trend

Lastly, I have produced a table showing the number of images shot by month and year.

I have not looked much into what this indicates, as the year and month breakdowns already discussed paint a better picture; but it remains never the less an interesting exercise to see how my actvity during the same month over an eleven-year period can experience peaks and troughs.

Y/M	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
2005	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	4	2	3	0	2	12
2006	3	22	2	22	12	42	7	6	19	20	13	44	212
2007	65	0	66	5	17	19	19	9	46	27	32	29	334
2008	30	36	20	34	16	52	24	14	13	14	8	43	304
2009	30	16	9	31	24	28	12	5	4	11	5	8	183
2010	5	5	9	13	11	13	15	16	15	2	3	6	113
2011	8	3	0	15	8	4	6	5	1	10	3	4	67
2012	27	8	6	28	12	13	10	4	1	80	0	0	189
2013	21	0	0	1	19	3	1	2	0	0	0	5	52
2014	4	2	0	4	13	1	0	6	3	0	0	0	33
2015	0	0	0	4	2	95	0	0	0	0	0	0	101
Total	193	92	112	157	134	270	95	71	104	167	64	141	1,600

In conclusion, it has been an interesting exercise to gather and analyse my image data to see which cameras, lenses, exposure settings and points in time were most and least significant; and if you have read this far, congratulations, as this indeed is a long, dry article which analyses the sorts of information about which most people would not care.

For me, the data I now gather and report can be useful in recognising trends in my photography over the years from an EXIF data viewpoint, but it essentally remains little more than an academic exercise which was rewarding from a creative and geeky viewpoint.