Last year, I started sharing a version of the lens and Camera stats that I collect every year to observe how I am using or not using my equipment. These are based on the images from my Best Of posts, which tend to be a great microcosm for how I use equipment on the whole. This data also includes the documentary “snapshots” that wind up in those posts, and this explains why the iPhone 7+ stat is so high.

There is a lot you can gain from looking at your year to year stats in this way. For instance, if I compare last year’s data to this year’s, some obvious differences emerge:

First of all, in 2017, you can easily see that I had a clear primary camera body that I photographed with 59% of the time. If you remove the Iphone Stat from the chart, that percentage would skyrocket up to about 79%. However, if you check out the graph from 2018, removing the iPhone stat introduces two bodies used almost the same amount (the D7200 was sold in July, so for 5.5 months, the D300 was my primary cam). Next year, it will be interesting to see if Nikon makes it onto the yearend graph at all.

 As for lenses, something interesting emerges. A lens that I haven’t used in years, the Nikon 35-135mm f/3.5-5.6D, shot 8% of my “Best of” imagery. That’s a bit misleading in terms of use, however, because I used it FAR more than 8% of the time (it is just not as high quality of a lens as some of the others). This means that a disproportionate amount of my “Best of” images were made prior to my selling the D7200 in July (the D300 was always shot alongside the D7200, especially with the 50mm f/1.8D lens, which explains some of its total stats).

An unintended takeaway from all of this then is that, for those photographers who unintentionally damage, have stolen, or who have to sell parts of their primary camera kit, the hit to overall output can be dramatic. It’s only one more reason to cherish whatever equipment you’ve got, since after all, any camera is better than no camera at all.