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:
- We collected 552,000 example user pictures.
- We paired them up and asked people to make snap judgments, like so:
- 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.
- 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.
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.


Two questions, really.
Firstly, how did you adjust for time-zone? Do the cameras all have GPS data included (I didn’t think they did, especially not the older ones) or were you basing it off the user’s current location (not much good when photos get taken while on vacation, or if somebody has moved).
Also, there seem to be two HUGE spikes – at about 3:45am and roughly 12:30pm – any ideas for why that might be?
Cheers.
The aperture data suggest to me that a LOT more people are only interested in looks than anything else. At least with the women, I found the high-f shots much more attractive, because they looked like a PERSON who was DOING SOMETHING (about which I might could make a judgment about her personality) and not just a body. So yeah, if you want to attract shallow, mindless perverts, go with the close-ups.
Is it that photo taken without flash are usually taken with a larger aperture? Maybe only the use of flash has an effect on photo attractiveness.
I think the time spikes might be connected with default times on cameras where no one has set the clock?
dSLRs have greater depth of field control and require less flash.
Flash becomes a key player (along with alcohol) in those pics at the bar at 11pm that may not prove to be so flattering.
So all of these things support each other and even overlap quite a bit.
Except the iPhone thing. I reckon that the average iPhone weilding 30 year old is more vain and therefore more likely to lie about sexual exploits. Or has accepted the quantity over quality argument at every aspect of life. Just a thought.
@Thane
The camera’s EXIF data records the time the photo was taken. The time is set by the user usually, or sometimes set when the camera is plugged into a computer. So it would probably be accurate as long as the person taking the picture kept their camera in relative sync w/ the local time.
Apple users having more sexual partners doesn’t mean they have more sex. Having 10 one night stands is not more sex than my girlfriend and I having sex 10 times a week or more…
Remember guys, if she has an iPhone, she’s more likely to have had more partners!
I’ll stick to Android users.
If anything this shows the more money you spend on taking photographs the better they’re going to look. One could argue that going 800+ on a camera would also make one a better photographer but that is more subjective and arguable. This exercise seems to promote the concept that a professional setup with questionable reality will get a person more attention than somebody who is realistic and takes a few pictures in their house or family photos from a vacation.
The false reality bent seems to be the most rewarding. Truly more intriguing than the data argument over cameras.
This is actually very helpful.
I think there’s something else about the low-f/stop photos…They look more professional. Could there possibly be correlation there? For example, could someone perhaps be more interested in someone who took the time to have a professional-quality photo done? Does that suggest interest in more than just looks?
Android users have less sex because they’re a bunch of nerds like me. Android, FTW!
An interesting article, but like many of these blog posts it often confuses correlation with causation :(.
Great article. Being a photographer, a grand majority of this isnt really new but the stats are interesting. Flashes [unless you have a good on camera flash that can swivel or have a softbox] can either make or break a portrait. Set the ISO to 100-400…natural light [from a window is always great]…f-stop in the 1.2 – 3 range…and 9 times out of 10 you have a great portrait. Its worth mentioning again from previous articles that girls “look better” shot from slightly above their eye line and vis-versa for men.
However it should be pointed out that simple color/brightness/contrast correction in programs like Photoshop, Aperture, or Paint.net are way easier than going out and dropping a couple hundred dollars on a “good” camera or iPhone. But thats as much editing as you want to do.
So you’re saying that DLSR’s take nicer pictures than camera phones. Interesting.
Sarcasm aside, as a photographer, I really wonder about the choices of pictures people decide to put up on dating sites. I mean you want to look your best right? We all know what I’m talking about.
I have thought of doing a side business and do cheap rate photoshoots for people to have nice pictures for dating websites.
…although one more thought. Even a nice camera with a talented photographer can’t fix what God gave ya.
Could having a better camera mean that the owner is more of a professional photographer, thus resulting in a better picture?
The fact that the photos of users of DSLRs and certain makes of point-and-shoots/cameraphones are more attractive than others is indicative of their users, not the cameras themselves. For instance, Panasonic Micro-4/3 cameras have not been around for any more than a year or two, while almost all of the other classes of cameras have been around much longer. So it is likely that they seemingly take very, very attractive photos of users because of 1) small sample size of users and/or 2) the fact that these cameras tend to be purchased by “early adopters”, which likely spend lots of money on cameras and are more into photography than your average user. As for why Kodak is such an outlier…once again, probably because of the users that tend to buy Kodak cameras. Most of Kodak’s cameras are not very feature-heavy and seem oriented towards people who are novices at photography/using a computer…so most of the good photographers likely tend to go for models from other manufacturers.
If you’re a great photographer (and the subject of the photo being photogenic helps too), you can manage to pull off a good photo with virtually any camera. Obviously there’s stuff that you can’t do with an inexpensive camera…good luck trying to get the same effect that you’d get from an f/1.2 lens on your point-and-shoot! And of course, it’s not hard to take shitty photos with a DSLR, especially if you don’t really know how to use one. Additionally, individuals who are into photography may be more likely to have an aesthetic sense that extends to their dress and overall appearance.
The idea that more sexual partners = more sex is flawed.
It’s more likely that they actually have less sex but with more people (and thus exposing themselves to a risk of catching an STD) while people who have fewer sexual partners are likely to have a more stable, long lasting relationships (with regular sex) then their iPhone touting counterparts.
In essence, having an iPhone increases your change of an STD.
Did you just equalize the amount of sex partners with the amount of sex one has?
So an Apple person having 5 sex partners in a year (having sex with them once a week) has more sex than an android person having one sex partner for a year but having sex twice a day?
The The Panasonic Micro avg is almost twice that of the 2nd best, Leica. Did you really have a good amount of data points for those specific models of camera?
I’m jealous of the photographers with f/1.2 lenses!
I think that others are right: taking a multivariate look at aperture, flash, and camera type could be pretty interesting. There’s probably a lot of correlation at play.
My Carl Zeiss lens. Of course my pictures look fantastic…. Well, that and the fact I am strikingly good-looking AND an a photobug. (Modest, too.) I have considered offering to shoot some pictures for the boy I am sort of seeing on Ok because his are, in my opinion, inaccurate and unflattering. Then I come to my senses. There’s no way in Hell he’s going to pick up other women with a picture I took….
Droid
Absolutely zero diseases of any kind. Superiority is great.
f1.2?
At $1,500+ just for a lens, it BETTER make every single image look more attractive!
You should probably mention that shooting portraits at f1.2 will give you such a shallow depth of field that if you get someone’s nose in focus, their eyes will probably be blurry. They’re not the easiest lenses to handle… no zoom either!
Anyway, I miss the new ground sort of posts that the earlier blogs highlighted. This one’s not really saying anything that’s not already tried, tested, and well-known. Even if it was less useful information, I’d rather see something interesting here!
What is people with more expensive cameras (m4/3 and dSLRs) simply have more money for clothing or cosmetics, or for some other reason just are more attractive? Then buying a better camera would not cause the people in photos to look more attractive. There are lots of explanations for this data that are glossed over.
Error bars, please.
Maybe Apple users are just posers, that do the same when asked about their amount of sex partners?
No, seriously. If we take into account that iPhone is a lifestyle product and was something to show around, it’s probably bought by a lot of people who tend to care about their appeal to others. Which is sometimes good, sometimes just annoying.
The noon and midnight spikes are likely to be default EXIF values written when the camera’s clock hasn’t been set, or by photo editing software overwrites the values. The 4:00 AM spike is curious… perhaps a quirk of a particular kind of camera or editing software? One EXIF field misinterpreted as another?
The time-zone adjustment mentioned is probably just the fact that cameras record the local time it is set to, and not universal time.
I’d be interested to see the correlation between date and attractiveness too. Summer pictures are hotter than winter? Friday night pictures are hotter than Wednesday morning?
Error Bars!
Correlation, not causation!
Otherwise, very amusing article – and the fact about flash and 7 years is a first to me.
Perhaps people who can afford expensive cameras and iPhones really are better looking. Lifestyle, nice food, nice clothes, expensive makeup.
F-Stop and Time-of-Day are perhaps correlated: Golden hours and other lower-light situations allow for the use of wide open f-stops without blowing out the highlights. You need less light in the environment to keep the aperture open for a given shutter speed.
If you have the data it would be awesome to see the time time-of-day chart that normalizes f-stop.
Maybe attractive people bother to take a good photo with a good camera, because they really want to highlight how good they look, and hideous people just stick with the phone camera because no amount of effort is going to make them look better anyway.
I like to reverse the causation of any article that infers correlation=causation.
4AM = when the clubs/bars close, maybe?
Speaking as a science geek here, I really don’t think there’s enough correlation in photo attractiveness vs. time taken to draw any meaningful conclusions. There’s a lot of noise in that data, and besides, what’s the “attractiveness” unit? If it’s as small as it looks, then the correlation is pretty meaningless. And finally, if it’s just a tiny difference, then other factors which have been previously discussed dominate, so you should only think about that.
More sexual partners means that iPhone users are more promiscuous, not that they have more sexual partners.
Just like at work, 1 year experience repeated 10 times does not equal 10 years experience.
Something else to consider, the low f stops and shallow DOF can only be achieved with DSLRs, not P&S and definitely not camera phones. The better lenses are going to probably have a larger impact on the result than the camera itself.
generally if people are spending $$$ on expensive cameras they probably know how to take flattering pictures. i bet the same people could take attractive pics with camera phones as well.
That’s why they wont allow flash on the iphone
Regarding the iPhone users have more sex bit:
1) Your metrics show that iPhone users don’t have more sex — it shows that they have more sexual *partners*. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, as it might mean that they are less likely to be satisfied with their relationships.
2) Gay men are huge consumers of Apple product. They also (and I say this from hearing Dan Savage say it regularly) have a disproportionately higher rate of one-night stands and hookups. This could be skewing your statistic quite a bit. I’d be interested in seeing it broken down by sexual preference instead of simply gender. (The fact that the number is even higher among iPhone-owning females is not necessarily correlated.)
Just a minor nitpick: the depth of field isn’t proportional to the f-value, but to the diameter of the aperture. Or another way to look at it is that it’s not affected by the f-value alone, but by a combination of f-value and sensor size. The smaller a sensor, the less shallow the depth of field will be for the same f-value. So DSLRs, with their huge sensors compared to the fingernail-sized sensors of point-and-shoot cameras, have a huge advantage in this regard. A DSLR at f3.5 (the usual starting point for DSLR zoom lenses) can achieve a more shallow depth of field compared to a point-and-shoot at f2.8 (the usual starting point for those).
It would therefore be interesting if you could run the f-value analysis independently for the two types of cameras, I’d be very curious to see the result.
Of course, as others have pointed out, there seems to be a lot of cross-correlation in the data between different parameters, which makes it hard to draw conclusions on any single one of them. For example, to stick to the f-value discussion, there are very few point-and-shoots that can go below f2.8, so this is also one of the reasons that makes the photos with a smaller f-value statistically more attractive: they’ve almost certainly been shot with a DSLR.
While the data is interesting it’s hard to know what to make of it with so little mentioned of relative sample sizes and what (if any) statistical analyses were done. While I appreciate that such details may not be of interest to the casual reader, it would be nice if a link to a more technical description of methods and results were provided. Also, as Dan has already mentioned, at the very least we need to see the error bars where possible to have a sense of the variance and likelihood that certain differences are statistically significant as opposed to insufficient sample size.
For instance, in the phone OS vs sex partners comparison, the relative sample sizes and variance could make a huge difference in interpretation. Another variable worth considering is what percentage of those with photos from specific phones have revealed their number of sexual partners. There’s also the question of how is it established what type of phone a user uses. The EXIF data tells you what was used to take the photo but not who took it nor who owned the camera.
Depth of field is also affected by focal length so the comparison based on f-number alone isn’t quite accurate. That aside there are other correlations that are possible. Notably, the use of f-number to force a shallow depth of field, especially where available light permits the use of a narrower aperture, is something someone with little photographic technical knowledge may not understand but a professional or more serious amateur certainly would. The later is also more likely to get a better exposure, better framing, and do appropriate post-processing. This technique is also very common in professional portraiture so there may be a correlation with pro-shots which may also manipulate pose, makeup, artificial lighting, etc. With so many variables it’s hard to know what’s really going on. Personally, I didn’t find any strong correlation given the samples displayed. I found some of the people shot with high f-number as or more attractive than those with low f-number. But with a single sample at each f-number this is hardly definitive.
I also take some issue with the concept that you should be looking your best in your photos. While it’s understandable, in reality I think a number of photos that are truly representative of what you look like in the real world is ultimately more useful. It’s not hard to find or create a photo of yourself where you look fantastic but don’t really look like you. If your goal is to get the most attention online, sure use that photo. But if your goal is to actually meet people in the real world, this is just another form of deception. It’s like claiming you’re thin when you’re obese. Who do you think you’re fooling? Isn’t it better to meet people who are actually interested in you, as opposed to some fake persona you’ve created?
> It’s my opinion that because the photos with the low f numbers
> feel more intimate and personal, they get a better viewer response.
Right…never mind that the girl at f/1.2 is completely gorgeous.
And congratulations on proving that it’s mostly geeks who own Android devices.
@Mellie: funny…and good thinking!
Just having an iPhone doesn’t get you laid more often. Getting laid more often increases the chance that you are the sort of person to buy an iPhone. It’s about what kind of person you are that determines what phone you buy or how easy you get in the sack, not about the phone you have.
My 2 cents: the fact that pictures from DSLRs result in more hits than the pictures from camera phones cannot simply be attributed to the cameras, but also to the photographers. A good photographer is more likely to use a DSLR than a camera phone, and vice-versa, an inexperimented photographer will likely be using a phone or a point-and-shoot. And then a good photographer will also get the right composition, the right angle, will take several pictures and select the best etc…
So the conclusion is not to buy a DSLR, but to make better pictures. And then, yes, all the other elements, like the use of flash and depth of field, will help.
Anyway, nice analysis overall!
What? No f/1.0 data? It’s only a $4200 lens!
http://www.photographyreview.com/mfr/canon/35mm-primes/PRD_83381_3111crx.aspx
Did you do any comparisons of the “myspace angle” where the person (typically women) hold the camera almost straight above their head and look up to take the picture, thus hiding most of the body.
The data in addition to the theory and findings of this article are quite amusing. Saying that time of day in relation to the use or no use of flash.
When it comes down to it knowing how to use a camera and the settings with it is what makes or breaks a photo. One could have a $500 camera and not know how to properly use its settings and ends up with a crapy photo. While the camera i use is a point and shoot and have made some nice shots and its 1/2 the price of most Nikon or Cannon cameras.
Photoshop now and then does help as well.
Regarding the f-stop and depth of field, your methodology is flawed.
You need to look at the effective depth of field, taking into account both sensor size and f-stop.
A picture taken f1.4 on a 4/3 camera will have roughly the depth of field of a picture taken at f2.8 on a digital camera with full frame 35mm sensor, assuming the subject is pictured at approximately the same size relative to the picture.
It also appears that some of the pictures are professionally produced, with the look of acting headshots. Not sure how this will skew your data.
For some further analysis I would suggest looking at lens focal length. As a professional cinematographer I know that when I want to make someone look really good I put a nice long lens on, with a fast f-stop.
Congratulations, OKCupid, you’ve discovered portrait photography.
Low, but not impossibly low f/stop. Because clutter is clutter, and it’s more ‘intimate’ as you say.
‘Golden Time’. So that you don’t look like a 2D cardboard cutout or anime cartoon (unless you swing that way).
Not bleaching out your face with a flash. Unless you use fill flash like this:
http://www.danheller.com/tech-fillflash.html
(put a kleenex over your point n shoot’s flash and try again)
High, but not impossibly high ISO numbers. For expressive color/light sans flash. Too much and the pic gets grainy –which I see a lot of on OKC.
-Captain… Banana!!
Interesating – becasue I am begining to hate mobile phone cameras, to say nothing of your average mugshot boothe – they do makeme look like a monster and they doake me look ugly!!!!
Somehow they distort, don’t know how they do it. IAnalogue shotsmakemelook a bitmorenrmal, a bit more ok….
wait, is this saying that many 30 year olds only have had 10-18 sexual partners in their lifetime? Is 50 that anomalous? I thought I was normal
@Andrew the photographer:
That sounds like an interesting business idea, but at the same time you have to remember what one of the previous blog posts pointed out: profile photos where people are doing interesting things matter a whole hell of a lot. A professional-quality studio type portrait is going to get better results than a quick self-shot photo or something your roommate takes, but at the same time, a “candid” photo of you doing something will be even better. Obviously a pro-quality candid would be great, but it would probably involve a lot more of your time, and thus their money, to make photos interesting instead of just plain.
If anyone has ever used Rosetta Stone language software, their photos illustrating verbs and things are excellent models for what would make a good profile photo, I think. They are clear, richly colored, not over exposed, and have to iconically capture the subject’s action.