Photo-stat

If you are somewhere in between into serious amateur photography, you probably heard about the community of photographers at photo.net. They recently had a survey on their members their members. There is nothing exceptional about the statistics. Considering the fact that this is a community of mainly serious-amateur to pro photographers, the results are kind of expected.
Ladies are in general more confident in posing in front of the lens than going behind it. That commemorates with the fact that male human beings are more sensitive to visual pleasures. And probably at the begining of second half of life most of us become little lost and then try to hold on to old hobbies. That may explain the high number of middle-aged photographers. (I don't think they have to spent half of their lifetime to get into the stage of serious amateur). The fact that Canon is the front-runner in camera brand is not surprising as they were the early birds in dishing out cost-effective semi-pro DSLRs. As expected, Nikon is also at the same level. But surprisingly Pentax has a staggeringly low share, even if they are supposedly at the same level, if not better, in the film camera sector (which is still almost half of the entire photo sector). Interestingly even in the community of serious amateurs the point-and-shoot digital cameras are edging out the film SLRs. Indeed immediate feedback and virtually no recurring cost are two of the major factors that turn one into a serious amateur from a casual photographer.

Photo.net Survey Reults

Photo.net members are: 87% Male 13% Female

-By age:
17 or under: 1%
18-24: 5%
25-34: 18%
35-44: 23%
45-54: 32%
55-64: 15%
65 or over: 6%

-20% are professional photographers in some fashion, 66% are serious amateurs, and 14% say they are "just getting started in photography."

-Cameras used:
Digital SLR camera: 84%
35 mm film camera: 44%
Point-and-shoot digital camera: 41%
Camera phone: 1%
Medium format camera: 19%
Large format camera: 5%
Rangefinder: 12%
Other: 4%

-Brands used:
Canon: 50%
Fuji: 7%
Kodak: 4%
Leica: 6%
Nikon: 42%
Olympus: 12%
Panasonic: 4%
Pentax: 12%
Sony: 9%
Other: 31%

-Lenses and memory cards were the most common items purchased in the previous 12 months and were also the most likely to be purchased in the following 12 months.

-Many different computer applications were used for digital adjustment of images, but Photoshop and Photoshop Elements was the most common by a significant margin.

Courtesy - Photo.net

Having said all these, I love my Vivitar because it has a Pentax K mount and K mount is amazingly backword compatible making it easy to find damn cheap used good manual lenses on ebay!