List of Top 100 photography Youtube channels of 2018

Another year is over, and it's time to look into the top 100 photography Youtube channels of 2018. Who made it on top this time? Who slipped? Who surprised? You will learn everything here. I have been doing this in 2016 and 2017 already, you can compare this list with the old one. For the record, I check this data one by one by going to the channel's About page, I do it within one day, so that it's a fair sample of the current situation. Things can quickly change on the internet, so if you're reading this a couple of days, weeks, or month later and realize that your channel has been moving higher, there's nothing I can do. I will make the next list in early 2019. Until then, this is what the rank will be for 2018.

The rules

These are some simple rules as to who I am listing:

- The channel has to be in English language
- The channel has to be about the art of photography or photography gear

I want to list influencers in the English speaking online photography community, that's the key criteria. Here are some types of photography related channels that are NOT listed here, because I take them as a completely separate category:

- Photographer channels who mainly vlog and do other content
- Photoshop and Lightroom channels (and other image processing channels)
- Videography and video gear focused channels

The above applies, if these focus areas are the main content of the channel. There's a lot of overlap here, where some channels do a lot of other things besides photography, and I still listed them. At the end the choice might be subjective. The channels are ranked by total video views, I think that's the best way to find out who is most popular. Views trump subscribers in my opinion, because a lot of times people subscribe to a channel, but never again watch it. There might be a case where I forgot a channel or two, you can mention it in the comments, and I will update my list.

The list of Top Photography Youtube channels

Let's see the rank of Top 100 photography channels on youtube and then draw our conclusions:

Here are some of the key changes and trends that I have observed since I made my last list in May 2017:

- #7 Peter McKinnon is shooting up towards the top spot, virtually doing all that in less than 2 years. While DigitalRev is still far ahead in video views, the pace at which Peter is growing is massive, and might catch up next year. He gained nearly 70 million new video views in 10 months, and 1.2 million subscribers. In that regard he's just around 100,000 subscribers shy to become the most subscribed photography Youtube channel.

- #12 Jessica Kobeissi is another massive growth channel. She gained 573,000 new subscribers since last year, and 30 million views. I have no idea why that happened. I see some of her videos might have gone viral somewhere, but if you have more details, please share in the comments below. She's become #3 most subscribed photography channel, overtaking Fro Knows Photo.

- #3 Tony & Chelsea Northrup and #13 The Angry Photographer continue to grow exponentially. Tony is gaining on Fro Knows Photo, overtook him in new subscribers and new video views. Generally Tony's video have 3 times more views per video than Fro's, because Fro is producing clickbaity garbage every day, while Tony is focusing on quality. The Angry Photographer is gaining a cult following, and with 14 million new video views since 2017, he's #8 in terms of growth of all channels, not far behind Adorama and Fro Knows Photo. I believe he will overtake Fro by next years when it comes to new video views.

Fro's attempt to stir controversy with Tony Northrup backfired.

Read also: Why you should not trust "photography" channels like Tony Northrup?

- #4 Matt Granger seems to be in trouble. His total videos are 37 less, which means he was deleting a lot of them. In terms of video growth, he is only #62 (!) with 1.4 million new views. What happened? Why did he delete old videos? His subscriber growth was also just something over 50000, that is three times less than Tony Northrup's growth. Are people getting tired of his boring videos? Or did he run out of Asian women in his thumbnails? We have yet to see what's going on.

The list of Top Photography Youtube channels in terms of year over year growth

These are only the numbers that happened between May 2017 (my last list) and today. The channels marked in grey are in the top 20 of my 2018 list based on all time views. This could be another way to read the data and conclude that currently the most popular photography channels are Peter McKinnon and Jessica Kobeissi, while The Angry Photographer is #8.

My opinion and recommendations

Personally I am watching less and less Youtube in general, because it's become highly commercial and clickbaity. Most of the Top 20 are garbage, and I would not recommend you to subscribe to them, if you want to learn about photography. Quality content is not easy to find anymore, because you all know what floats on the water. Nevertheless, there still are some channels I would recommend to watch, if you want to see people who have love and passion for photography, but are not bought out by camera and gear manufacturers. These are: The Angry Photographer (gear reviews; Nikon/Fuji), Thomas Heaton (landscape photography; Canon), Mark Smith (new channel, bird photography; Nikon), and Steve Perry (autofocus, settings; Nikon).