The organisers of the Photo & Film Expo ran a survey, this year, to find out more about the attendees of the show. The results are, in some cases, quite surprising.

Despite having lots of wildlife in Africa, most urban dwellers still have to put in some effort and take a long drive to photograph wildlife. Yet that’s exactly what dominated the charts for “favourite type of photography”. The second most popular category was, predictably, landscapes. Given the gorgeous vistas on offer from almost any location in South Africa, that’s less surprising. Even more unsurprising is the lowest-ranking item: aerial photography. Obviously that requires significantly more resources, but we’d like to see more photographers, err, rise to the occasion.

A majority of the respondents also shared their involvement in photography. 41% of those surveyed said that photography is a serious hobby for them, while only 14.5% were professional photographers. Another 15.5% confessed they’d like to get more interested in photography, while 18.7% said that they’d like to be full-time paid photographers.

Gear is also mentioned in the results for the survey. The most popular memory card brand, by some way, is Sandisk. Mean while Canon and Nikon top the camera and lens charts in 1st and second position, respectively. As for spending money on their hobby or profession, nearly 49% owned up to dropping less than R10 000 a year on photography gear. 44.6% said they spend between R10 000 and R50 000 a year. While 34 anonymous braggarts, accounting for a mere 1.29% of those surveyed, said they spend more than R100 000 a year.

More results are below, in a full infographic from the PhotoSurvey website.