Don’t Be Ugly By Accident!

August 10th, 2010 by Christian Rudder

If you're anything like me, you usually think of your pics in terms of content: Here's me smiling. Here's me looking tough. Here's me in Hawaii with that wacky turtle. And so on. Today, however, we'll analyze photography from a numerical angle—we'll discuss flash, focus, and aperture instead. We feel like people don't really think about these things when they choose a profile photo, and yet, as we shall see, their misuse can seriously mess you up.

As always, our data comes from dating site OkCupid, one of the largest, and most interesting, datasets on the web. This article aggregates 11.4 million opinions on what makes a great photo.

. . .

Our experiment:

  1. We collected 552,000 example user pictures.
  2. We paired them up and asked people to make snap judgments, like so:
  3. We collated these millions of judgments with the time of day each picture was taken, what the shutter speed was, and so on. Almost all modern cameras embed this stuff in a special header, called EXIF data.
  4. We made graphs.

Here are our findings:

1. Panasonic > Canon > Nikon.

The type and brand of camera you use has a huge effect on how good you look in your pictures. This is a plot of the most popular makes:

As you can see, the general pattern is that more complex cameras take better pictures. Interchangable lens cameras (like digital SLRs) make you look more attractive than your basic point and shoot cameras, and those in turn make you look better than your camera phone. I'm not sure what's going on with Kodak all the way to the right there. They might want to consider making sharing more difficult.

Beyond the advantages or shortcomings of any specific brand, the more-complex-is-better trend bears out at all ages:

And we also found similar numbers looking only at people who uploaded all three types of photos. Putting such a triplet together dramatically illustrates the difference:

oh, also—iPhone users have more sex.

File this under "icebreakers, MacWorld '11". Finally, statistical proof that iPhone users aren't just getting fucked by Apple:

The chart pretty much speaks for itself; I'll just say that the numbers for all three brands are for 30 year-olds, so it's not a matter of older, more experienced people preferring one phone to another. We found this data as part of our general camera-efficacy analysis: we crossed all kinds of user behaviors with the camera models and found we had data on the number of sexual partners for 9,785 people with smart phones. We dropped what we found into Excel, and voila. Here's the plot by age:

Just so you know, the names and the actual photos are removed when we do this kind of research; we just see the stats in aggregate. Everything is anonymized. Now let's leave brands and gadgets aside and look at how purely photographic phenomena can affect your precious face.

2. The flash adds 7 years.

This is another simple finding that needs little explanation.

Soft light can hide wrinkles, blemishes, devil eyes. The hard light of a flash often brings them out. As I illustrate with the dotted lines below, you can calculate the equivalent "aging" effects of a flash by counting years horizontally between the 'flash' and 'no flash' lines. For example, a 28 year-old who used a flash is as attractive as a 35 year-old who didn't. Trace the dotted lines to see what I'm talking about. Don't piss off Ming.

One thing we observed is that most flash exposures—even from SLR's—appeared to be direct flash. That's where the flash was fired directly at the subject, producing harsh shadows. If you have access to a flash that can bounce off the ceiling or walls, that could work much better.

3. Blot out all other reality.

We found that the best pictures have a very shallow depth of field, meaning that the subject is in crisp focus while the rest of the picture is blurry, like this:

I'll spare you my explanation of the optics behind this and instead let a graphic from the 10,000 word wikipedia page fill you in:

Thanks, hivemind, you genius! Basically, you get this sharp/blurry effect from having a wide-open aperture: low f numbers on your camera, like f/1.8, f/2.2, etc. For two pictures taken at the same distance, the lower f number will give you a shallower depth of field.

The widget below plots the aggregate attractiveness, by f number, of our user photos in a little color-coded array, alongside examples of each type of photo, so you can easily see how the depth of field affects things. For obvious reasons, we restricted this analysis to photos by cameras capable of a wide range of apertures.

show women show men

It's my opinion that because the photos with the low f numbers feel more intimate and personal, they get a better viewer response.

4. There are peak times of the day to take a good picture.

Below is a minute-by-minute distribution of when people are taking their pictures. This plot also does a good job of showing off the sheer number of photos we analyzed for this piece:

Of course, the most interesting thing isn't when people are taking their photos, but when they are taking their best photos:

It seems that, broadly speaking, late night and late afternoon are optimal. I can't really say why that is, but I can irresponsibly theorize that photos taken in the former bracket tend to be more provocative, those taken in the latter tend to be pleasantly lit.

As noted, the plotted timestamps are adjusted by time zone and for daylight savings, and when you overlay the path of the sun through the sky during our theoretical "day", you see peaks just after sunrise and just before sunset: evidence of the golden hour.

. . .

In conclusion, the data strongly suggest that if you're single, you (or someone you know) should learn a little bit about photography. Technique can make or break your photograph, and the right decisions can get you more dates.

It's actually not that hard. Use a decent camera. Go easy on the flash. Own the foreground. Take your picture in the afternoon. Then visit the nearest Apple store. Done.

374 Responses to “Don’t Be Ugly By Accident!”

  1. Brock says:

    I have a half-joking hypothesis about those Kodak EasyShares: the owners are largely morons. A few years ago I worked retail in electronics, and that was always the cheapest model, sticking right at the impulse-buy point of $99 for 3.2 megapixels. That was during the digicam craze, before phones could do better than an ugly wallet-size shot. Nevermind that $30 more would net a Fuji with *optical zoom*. That’s too much to shell out. Every redneck and his brother came in to the store to buy a $99 EasyShare for Grandma and every other non-savvy family member who needed a XMas present. So years later, those crap Kodaks are what’s still sitting around in millions of homes, ripe for the grandkids or creepy Uncle Bruce to snap portraits for an online profile.

    Fun aside: Often the EasyShares were bundled with a 4×6″ “photo printer” — which is to say a fucking dust collector. The entry fee was low but the printer racketeers jack the price on the special ink + glossy paper. Few people used more than the 12-pack included in the box.

  2. Gz says:

    That “Sunrise, Sunset, and Photo Attractiveness” doesn’t really take account on the real sunrise and sunset location-wise, but it’s still connected to the same data as the data before (By Time Taken) with some arbitrarily-chosen sun time. The sun isn’t up the same amounts of time everywhere.

  3. quadmux says:

    Whats more interesting in this (i think) is that Women are getting more than men.. hmm.. the only way that is possible if women are not only sleeping with men :P…..

  4. Brandon Pierce says:

    What I find most interesting is that women, on average, have more sex partners on average than men. I would have expected the data to show the opposite.

  5. Hamranhansenhansen says:

    > Firstly, how did you adjust for time-zone?

    The location is part of the data, isn’t it? They’re not trying to match people from New York City up with people from Berlin, right? If you have a date/time and location you can determine the time zone offset and whether it’s daylight savings.

    > Apple users

    Stop stereotyping, haters. Apple users are a very diverse bunch, just regular consumers. The results probably have much more to do with the fact that iPhones take much, much better photographs than Android and BlackBerry phones, even though the specs such as megapixels might imply otherwise.

  6. Markus Nordin says:

    Wow, simply wow.
    This is probably the single greatest blog entry i’ve ever read, and I’m not even a photographer!
    Great, great stuff!

  7. Christian Rudder says:

    “Whats more interesting in this (i think) is that Women are getting more than men.. hmm.. the only way that is possible if women are not only sleeping with men”

    It’s because the graph (and our research) has an upper age limit. More women sleep with older men than men sleep with older women.

  8. CK says:

    Once again, you use a phrase such as “Group X has more sex than Group Y” and then go on to show data about number of sexual partners. You think someone who has a bunch of one-night stands has more sex than someone who’s in a long-term relationship with a single person? Probably not.

  9. n says:

    Also interesting: do photo apps like ‘hipstamatic’ work, because you generally look much better with them, or are they counterproductive, because they annoy people? :)

  10. General Anubis says:

    Why is sexual success measured in promiscuity? I think someone who has sex 5 times a week with the same person is more sexually successful/satisfied than someone who has sex with say 4 different people in a year, around 1 or 2 times a week on average.

    Other than that, interesting results.

  11. Kimberly says:

    Correlation is not causeation though. More likely, it’s how the camera was used rather than what kind of camera it is. Isn’t it more reasonable to expect that someone with a DSLR or m4/3 format camera is going to compose and expose the photo best, followed by higher end P&S users, followed distantly by folks with crappy Kodak P&S cameras and phone cameras? The folks who own all three categories will likely shoot great (or at least) good shots with their iPhone or Android phone cameras vs. some drunk college sorority member using Verizon’s or AT&T’s “free cellphone of the week” camera.

    I’ve seen fantastic photos on flicker that were shot with smartphones. They’re just not the norm. It’s not the camera that stinks – it’s the tool wielding the camera that stinks.

    iPhone: Apple is known for having a customer base made up largely of artistic types; photographers, videographers, graphic designers, and so forth. That’s not to say all iPhone users are artistic, If you compare iPhone’s customer base to Android’s, android tends to be favored by asperger types – you know, geeks who don’t shower, can’t look anyone in the eyes, and never kissed anyone of the opposite sex. Yes, I am stereotyping here but Android attracts gearheads more than the iPhone.

    Objectively speaking, comparing the iPhone to any P&S camera made in recent years is ridiculous. The iPhone’s camera blows in that regard – even Kodak’s lousy P&S offerings are far superior. So what is it then? iPhone users are more likely, given Apple’s traditional customer base, to know how to compose a photo, how to control lighting, and basically make a great final image.

    Also skewing the curve: a lot of photographers (pro and amateur alike) own more than one camera. Most own more than one, I would say. They probably own a DSLR (35mm or medium format), an m4/3 or “bridge” P&S camera, and a smartphone, and put them all to good use, I’d be willing to bet that almost none of them would buy a Kodak digital camera because Kodak’s digital cameras are known for being on the trailing edge of obsolescence. I don;t think even photographers with a fondness for “holga” cameras would buy a Kodak digital camera. Kodak’s cameras are not marketed toward photographers and other artistic people; they’re marketed toward the lowest common denominator, riding on the name Kodak built on their excellent film and print products.

    Skewing the stats is the morons who compose their photos so that they’re filling 3% of the frame with themselves, which means the actual subject is in a tiny 20 pixel x 30 pixel block out of the entire frame, or they’ve got a way-out-of-focus photo (I’m not talking bokeh in the background, not a “soft focus” filter – I’m talking a blurry mess), or they’re shot in the dark with a smartphone or P&S camera.

    It’s not the hammer that is the problem; it’s the idiot wielding the hammer. Professional tradesmen do tend to pick better hammers, but this is where correlation is not causation. The quality tool is simply a side effect of the tradesman demanding quality.

    In the end it’s proper composition, lighting, and exposure that makes all the difference in an attractive vs. unattractive photo – on OKC and elsewhere.

    I know a photographer who loves old crappy cameras (like Holgas) and he uses them to produce wonderful art. He doesn’t use them where they are inappropriate but I would bet dollars to cents that if you put a Holga in his hands and the best DSLR in some drunk sorority chick’s hands, the Holga in experience hands will produce a far more attractive photo, and the DSLR photo will be blowing highlights, or be a noisy, under-exposed shadowy blur, or will be composed extremely poorly with the subject too far away or composed such that the eye of the viewer is drawn away from the subject to the pile of empty beer cans on the bookshelf in the background.

  12. sacundim says:

    I looked at the photos, and I did not find at all that the ones with less depth of field were better. In fact, I found a couple of examples of photos that needed more depth of field, if anything.

    For now I’ll limit myself to the ladies’ photos, where there was a much higher variability in quality:

    1.2: Good photo. Fairly soft, but the blurriness here gives a dream-like quality, and and blurry bubbles just look cool. I’d say this one is tied with f/4.5 for the best one of the bunch.

    1.4: Terrible. First of all, the lady’s pose is putting most of her in the shaddow, and hiding her face there; needs fill light and hair adjustment. But even then, the problem is that the photo needs more depth of field. Shallow depth of field is supposed to blot out distracting background, but in this case, the excessively shallow DoF makes the background distracting.

    1.8: Well done, though uninspired. A perfectly capable profile picture.

    2.2: Evil branch of distraction on the upper left corner. The photo would have been technically perfect without it; the background is properly blurred elsewhere. Lesson: always pick backgrounds carefully; don’t assume that shallow depth of field will blur them out without testing that it will.

    2.8: Technically adept, but bad posing or photo selection. I think this lady’s face must look a lot better in real life. Eyes are, like, half closed.

    3.5: Same as the 1.8: well done but uninspired.

    4.5: Tied for best of the bunch. Classic environmental portraiture, though a bit contrived (she’s posing, not actually cooking). Excellent lighting. DoF and focus are perfect: the closest eye is in perfect focus, which draws attention to her face, while everything else is a bit blurry but still recognizable.

    5.6: Um, bad white balance and focus; somehow, the focus and white balance went to the room to the right edge of the photo (is this a crop?). Needs fill light on her face (which needs to be applied carefully so as to prevent her the embarrassment of fill light up her skirt). I just don’t like the pose; it doesn’t make you look at her.

    6.3: good simple composition, despite the technical flaws (bad focus, and the lady got cut off). The contrast between her black hair and clothes and the white snow works pretty well. I think this is one of the best of the batch.

    7.1: similar to f/6.3: good simple composition, but needs fill light on her face.

    11: Not close enough. The ball is cut off. It’s a good idea to show subjects performing some activity, but this activity is kinda boring, and didn’t lead to an interesting pose.

    18: This is becoming a litany, but: needs fill flash on her face. I think it also needs her to look at the camera. The bridge is ugly. The photo needs to be closer.

    22: her face is not sharp. Not close enough. Background’s a bit boring.

  13. Darren M says:

    Correllation does not causation make. While it’s possible that the nicer cameras “take better photos”, it’s equally possible that people who know how to take good photos also invest in nicer equipment.

    I hope no one goes out and buys a dSLR because they think they’ll automatically be more attractive in their photos…

    In fact, with the exception of the depth-of-field and flash-use data points, most of this information is probably irrelevant. If you learn how to use your camera correctly, and compose a photo correctly, you’ll take better photos; whether or not you use a point-and-shoot is entirely secondary.

  14. sacundim says:

    The guys’ photos are overall of much higher quality than the ladies’, for some reason. Some are clearly better, but the not-so-good ones are still very decent, at a wide range of apertures. I won’t comment on most of them:

    1.4: Distracting blurred background. Folks, foliage isn’t a good background for portraits. It contains tons of tiny point highlights that make your background look textured and awful. This case is better than many, but still not very good.

    3.5: though the exception to the rule in 1.4 is that B&W makes it better.

    5.6: excellent idea, good focus and lighting, but DON’T CUT OFF THE TWO STATUES.

    22: needs more guy, less sky (i.e., get closer!).

  15. Dave says:

    Isn’t the f1.2 advantage about 90% explained by the minority of people who have professional pics? It doesn’t take many semi-pro model pics to skew the data

  16. RachelC says:

    It’s not that All women have more sex than men. Women with smartphones have more sex than men with smartphones.

    Leads me to suspect that women who own smartphones will sleep with guys that don’t own them, but men are superficial and use things like looks and smartphone-ownership to choose women! =)

    Of course, as a smartphone-owning woman dating a smartphone-less guy – I might be biased ;)

  17. Chris says:

    “we crossed all kinds of user behaviors with the camera models and found we had data on the number of sexual partners for 9,785 people with smart phones”

    People WITH smartphones, or people who had their photo TAKEN BY A smartphone?

    Other than the obvious self-portraits (where the subject’s arm reaches into the camera, or you can clearly see a mirror was used), I suspect most of the photos were taken by a friend and therefore were most likely taken using that friend’s phone rather than the subject’s. That makes it pretty hard to form much of a conclusion. Additionally, more partners doesn’t imply more sex. Gotta love statistics :)

    Regardless, that’s some pretty fun and interesting data you’ve presented there, thanks for sharing!

  18. Mikey says:

    As a photography enthusiast and an iPhone owner… this is the best article… ever.

  19. Paula says:

    Gosh, your analyses are always mind-blowing! :} But please don’t confuse correlation with causality. An SLR making for more attractive pictures than a phone cam is just one side of the story, the other being that good photographers tend to use better equipment.

    Bad or mediocre photographers now running off to get an expensive SLR for taking more attractive pictures will probably not get their money’s worth, while experienced photographers can still take awesome picures with their phones.

  20. RichyS says:

    As a Panasonic Lumix GH1 owning iPhone user, I’m feeling pretty hot right now!

  21. Michael says:

    Well,

    Post processing has a lot to do with it too. The Panasonic 4/3s are really good out of the box, when used with the Panasonic lenses, most other cameras though require extensive work to make images look good, even the high end DSLRs.

  22. Voxphoto says:

    Depth of field is a little more complicated: Camera phones and small point & shoots are almost never able to throw backgrounds out of focus—no matter the f/stop used. (The explanation is a little long-winded but is basically a result of the tiny sensor size used.)

    Interchangeable-lens cameras have the advantage here again. For good background blur, you switch to a lens with a physically large diameter, and use it at a wide aperture (low f/number).

    Few point & shoots even permit f/numbers below 2.8—most of the “green” apertures in your table could only have been shot using interchangeable-lens cameras.

  23. Todd says:

    This would have been a great article to share out to my network if only the author was literate enough to know an alternate word for “fucked.”

  24. jerbear says:

    regarding a lot of this, I would imagine it is more correlation than causation. For example: iPhones are purchased by trendy people with more disposable income. Android users tend to be more frugal, shopping for better carriers, etc. It’s like saying “hipsters with money get laid more than nerds”, Big surprise!

  25. Photo scientist says:

    I can’t tell if this is satire. I sure hope so. Correlation does not imply causality. If this is meant to be serious, you have some major issues.

  26. Charles Miller says:

    I’ve got to agree with some of the other commenters here. The take-away from this article is: “People who know how to take good photographs spend more money on cameras than people who don’t.”

  27. Jesse says:

    So does this mean as a photographer and iphone owner I should be “getting busy” all the time?

  28. Joe says:

    This article is flawed in several dynamics. Better cameras do not necessarily take better photographs. People who know how to use their cameras, and compose a shot tend to take better photographs. Better lenses and sensors in the right hands take good photographs in average hand to great photographs with little to no post processing. All good photographs can be turned into great photographs using applications like Adobe Photoshop with a little fine tuning of the color, contrast, exposure or any number of things that might be wrong with the photo is a slight way, Blurry pictures unfortunately have very little you can do with them, and the higher resolution the camera the better. I also have to agree with the people that commented that those in a committed relationship probably have more sex with their one partner than those who have multiple partners. I for one prefer to be in a committed relationship before sex takes place and I know that I am not alone out there…

  29. tmagic43 says:

    On types of cameras: If you’re using a digital SLR vs a camera phone you’re more likely to make yourself attractive because you know you’re going to be in a picture. Camera phones often are used to take quick and dirty pictures in random situations. You’re much more likely to do your hair, put on make up, make sure you smile well, then you’re having your picture taken with a good camera. I imagine that accounts for a very large part of the differences.

  30. Poptimus prime says:

    any theories on why the Panasonic Micro- 4/3rds did so much better than the other slrs

  31. jake says:

    hahahahaha!!!bwuhuhahahahaha!!! im a photographer and i can tell you that although they are spot on about the camera mechanics, everything else is a load of CRAP! had a great time reading this though.
    P.S they id not factor in the distance of the background from the subject when covering the F/stops… 12ft on f/4 can look like 2 feet on f/2.8 but the subject will actually be sharper on f/4 , therefor bringing more attention to the subject….
    ….
    …. and Canon make ppl look the prettiest!
    EOS FTW!

  32. Jackie Lovato says:

    I disagree completely with the comment/claim that ‘the general pattern is that more complex cameras take better pictures.’ I believe that people who understand photography/picture taking more than the average Kodak Easy Share Joe, are the ones that own and UNDERSTAND the more complex cameras. Therefore, they know how to use them, understand photography, lighting, composition and ultimately, how to make someone look good by taking a good picture. So it’s the photographer that is using the more complex camera that takes better pictures, not the complex camera itself that takes better pictures. Check out Chase Jarvis and his iPhone pics if you need proof.

  33. eisenreich says:

    Regarding the study that found iPhone users have more sex.. Getting screwed by AT&T shouldn’t count towards their scores.

  34. Lou says:

    Relation does not equal causation. You could say smart phone have higher turnover rates for technology, commodity and people. However, the smart phone itself is not a cause higher sexual activity.

  35. LP says:

    @Christian Rudder and @quadmux

    Although for the whole world population, men and women will have roughly the same number of sexual partners. For a very specific sample like this, it is very unlikely to happen disregarding the age limit in the research. I am surprise to see that the number for men are smaller, despite the fact that men are more likely to boost their numbers in comparison to women.

  36. Kspsp says:

    Regarding the IPhone:

    Doesn’t this just show that people who’re more concerned about their image buys an IPhone rather than other phones?

    IPhone has become sort of a symbol for hip/stylish/modern people.

  37. Audiovore says:

    I think Kimberly made most of the good points a few posts up.

    One other thing I think is that I doubt that photos with EXIF data are in the majority on OKC. I know most(if not all) of mine don’t as I just dragged them from FB to upload. And I am an amateur photog with 10 different cameras. I knew I was loosing the data, but never figured it’d matter as on general perusal OKC tosses aside EXIF data as FB does(whether FB does or not is also up in the air now, but when I see no reading of it anywhere(such as ‘This Photo Was Taken On:’) I assume its tossed).

    Most people don’t know what EXIF is, and more importantly probably don’t care too much.

  38. Melissa says:

    re: “…needs fill light and hair adjustment. But even then, the problem is that the photo needs more depth of field…”

    To everyone who is rating the photos in their comments: the original study was gauging people’s perception of how ATTRACTIVE THE PERSON IN THE PHOTO was to them, NOT judging the quality and composition of the photo itself. Duh.

  39. Jim says:

    Maybe iPhone users are just easier… I mean ‘sexually liberated’…
    or maybe Macs are favored by artists (who are more handy w/ artistic things), and people tend to stay with a company they like, leading artistic people to be more likely to buy iPhones than other people.

    I dno, I like my first theory better based on the people I know.
    Anyway, it’s just correlation, not causation.

  40. Alex says:

    RachelC,
    You got it. Perfectly ;)

  41. Jason says:

    One huge flaw in that data is that Android is an OS, spread across multiple phones. Some of those phones have great cameras*, while others do not, so the comparison against a single Apple stock camera doesn’t work. I know there isn’t much point to sifting through the raw data & comparing specific phones to the iPhone, but the differences should have been taken into consideration.

    *One basic anecdote, and I know it’s just the one, but it’s illustrative – after taking a picture of a group of female friends, they all raved about the quality of the picture on my Nexus One, especially as compared to their iPhones.

  42. OpenOaks says:

    Please be thoughtful about assertions as to who, has more, of what, and why. Each person, A, ~individually~ is more ~likely~ to have sex with a partner, B, who has had ~more~ partners than A has had. Again: for ~most~ individuals, ~most~ of your lovers will have had more lovers than you have had. Read it and weep: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200911/why-your-friends-have-more-friends-you-do

  43. Bartholemew says:

    This sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me, except for the point about on-camera flash being unflattering, which is a really simple and well-known idea that doesn’t require 500,000 collated opinions or whatever to come up with.

  44. Napaim says:

    Fantastic article!
    Hard to believe attractiveness can be summed up quite so distinctly.

  45. Jay says:

    @Brandon Pierce
    “What I find most interesting is that women, on average, have more sex partners on average than men. I would have expected the data to show the opposite.”

    That’s because women in general are more comfortable with sex with the same gender than men.

  46. Andrew Grimm says:

    Is there a correlation between phone type and income and education levels?

  47. jaded says:

    Since you based the phones & sex comment based on number of partners by age 30, and not quantity of sex regardless of partners, it’s entirely possible that iphone users are just sluttier or bad in bed, both of which would lead to more partners – but not necessarily more quantity or quality.

  48. Hahaha says:

    Right cause having more sexual partners means you’re getting more sex. Oh, wait.

    Note to self, don’t sleep with iPhone users, more likely to have STDs.

  49. xofis says:

    Dude. That photo isn’t attractive because of low f-stop. That photo is attractive because the chick is hot.

  50. OliviaR says:

    And this is why all my photographs are taken by professionals… ALL OF THEM