The Audubon bird photo contest competition for North America, has announced it’s winners for the year 2021: 13 winners and mentions and the top 100 images.
It’s the only wildlife photo competition that show equipment data and has a large enough participation to build a statistics.
CHAPTERS:
1) Analysis of the changes in statistics of 2021 compared with 2020:
2) Combined statistics of the last 3 years [2021, 2020, 2019] from 333 winner pictures:
2.1) Equipment statistics
2.2) Settings statistics
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The current statistics data will have less text analysis, if you want to have a more text analysis have a look at the article I wrote in 2020, the changes are not so big in 2021 over the previous years.
CHAPTER 1) Analysis of the changes in statistics of 2021 compared with 2020:
Camera MAKER:
– The competition is dominated by Canon more accentuated then in 2020, still on 1-st place with 57 images, but at greater distance compared with the 2-nd place.
– Nikon is keeping the 2-nd place but decrease the number of picture massively
– Sony is staying on 3-th place, but gain the number of picture massively and is getting close of Nikon
– If smaller camera manufactures (Fujifilm, Olympus, Pentax and Panasonic) in the previous years had some smaller number of camera in the winner list, in 2021 they have disappeared almost entirely.
2021 Camera Maker: table and graph
CAMERA Model:
– The landscape of winners has become more mixed than last year, the dSLR cameras with APS-C sensor from the professional series (launched by Canon in 2013 and Nikon in 2014) even if they won positions 1-st and 2-nd again, do not dominate so strongly. It’s the testament to this extraordinary line of cameras that unfortunately all camera manufactures have decided to abandon.
– Canon 7D mark II is the most used camera among the winners of the Audubon 2021 contest, climbing from 2-nd place [with 18 images] to 1-st place [with 11 images].
– Canon 1D X mark II climbs from 5-th place [with 8 images] to 2-nd place [with 9 images].
– Last year’s winner Nikon D500 falls from 1-st place [with 21 images] to 3-rd place [with 8 images], but still occupies a respectable position for such an old camera (launched in 2014).
– The new Canon 1D X mark III appears in the top on the 4-th place and equals the Nikon D850.
– Canon 5D mark IV fall a few positions.
– Sony A9 II and A9 appear in the top 10.
– The big losers are the older cameras like Canon 1D X (released 2011) and Canon 7D (released 2009) which although last year were in the top 10, in 2021 disappear almost completely from the list of winners.
2021 Camera Model: table
2021 Camera Model: graph
CROP FACTOR:
– In this area there has been a major change. 2021 is the year of full frame cameras domination. These were ranked 2nd [with 49 images] in 2020, reaching number 1 [with 78 images] in 2021. The reason is certainly that in the last 2-3 years all major manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Sony) have constantly renewed their line of full frame cameras with a lot of new cameras. The prolific line of professional APS-C dSLR cameras has been abandoned and replaced by new entry-level and mid-level APS-C cameras (like the Canon 90D, Nikon Z50, Sony A6400), but which do not they manage to get as good results in the competition as the old cameras.
2021 Crop factor: table and graph
LENS Model:
– Canon 100-400mm f/5.6 keep it’s 1-st place, with 12 images compared to 17 images in 2020.
– The biggest loser is Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 which from the 2-nd place with 12 images in 2020, falls on the 7-th place with 5 images
– The Canon 500mm and 600mm f/4 II superteles climb a little to the top, reaching 2-nd and 3-rd places, probably because they have become more affordable in the second-hand market due to new launches of mirroless super-telephoto and even dSLR.
– The most spectacular climb is on the 4-th place the appearance in the top Sony 200-600mm f/6.3 a good and affordable lens.
– On the 5-th place, it’s the super-lightweight Nikon 500mm f/5.6 PF, which even if it’s a lens launched in 2018, manufacturer had some problems with delivery and did not enter top 10 in 2020.
– The most spectacular fall are those of the supertele-zoom lenses manufactured by Sigma and Tamron 150-600mm f/6.3, which from positions 5-th and 7-th in 2020 disappeared from the top 10 in 2021.
2021 Lens: table
2021 Lens: graph
Lens TELECONVERTOR: (see the 2019-2021 TC count graph at the bottom of the page)
– The Canon is having an absolute domination in this area occupying all first 3 places, the Canon superteles being frequently used with TC’s and still producing winning images.
CHAPTER 2) Combined statistics of the last 3 years [2021, 2020, 2019] from 333 winner images from a total of around 24000 images:
This data is a combined statistics data of the:
– 2021 year, with 113 winning images from a total of ~9000 images and 2416 photographers
– 2020 year, with 110 winning images from a total of ~6500 images and 1800 photographers
– 2019 year, with 110 winning images from a total of ~8500 images and 2253 photographers
2.1) EQUIPMENT statistics
Camera Maker: table and graph
Camera Model: table
Camera Model: graph
Crop factor: table and graph
Lens Model: table
Lens Model: graph
Teleconvertor: table
Teleconvertor: graph
2.2) SETTINGS statistics
Maximum focal length (mm): table and graph
Equivalent maximum focal length (Eq. mm): table and graph
Exposure time: table and graph
Aperture (F/): table and graph
Sensitivity (ISO): table and graph
For anyone who want to build other statistics I will share the data input spreadsheet file: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AoxwgnI1mcZsgYF-rF2lrC3sdqpvDA