The open worlds of Rockstar hits Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) particularly attract photographers who enjoy the photo mode. They lead the top 10 list of photographers.
Lovingly detailed worlds invite players to explore. This pleases many gamers so much that the photo mode becomes a frequently used feature. Sometimes it is the sheer nature that is photo-worthy. Sometimes you specifically stage certain things like animals or plants to capture them.
The website Shotkit.com professionally deals with photography. It takes a look into the camera bags of well-known photographers and tests accessories. The team of the website recently researched which games are the most popular for in-game photography.
How was it rated? They used this list of the top 100 games from 2010 to 2019 (via gamezo.co.uk) and then searched on the platform Instagram for contributions to the hashtag #virtualphotography or in-game photography.
So popular are RDR 2 and GTA 5
Here are the winners: It will probably not surprise anyone who has played RDR 2 that Rockstar’s adventure with the vast open world takes first place.
At the time of the evaluation, there were 165,228 photos on Instagram with the hashtag rdr2photography. The new photo mode in RDR 2 is amazing. It’s not surprising that so many pictures are shared.
In second place of the evaluation is Grand Theft Auto V. Although the game was released in 2013, it still looks modern. You can find over 146,495 posts on Instagram for the hashtag gta5photography.
It gets even more exciting when a graphic mod makes the old GTA 5 look brand new.
Who else is in the top 5? Fortnite, Skyrim, and Horizon Zero Dawn hold positions 3 to 5 in the ranking.
Fortnite still remains in six figures with 135,005 posts. For Skyrim, there were 46,208 posts, and for Horizon Zero Dawn, there are at least 40,561.
In the remaining five spots, you can find:
- Forza Horizon 4 with 33,144 posts
- Ghost of Tsushima with 16,930 posts
- The Last of Us Part 2 with 5,339 posts
- Uncharted 4 with 4,918 posts
- The Sims 4 with 4,877 posts
What makes a game suitable for virtual photography?
For the evaluation of the results, Shotkit.com spoke with professional in-game photographer Leo Sang. They asked what a game must demonstrate in order for a photo mode to be suitable for virtual photography. Sang explains:
“[…] the movement of the camera should not be too restricted, the larger the range of motion, the easier it is to compose your shot. And the same goes for the other settings, field of view, rotation angle, depth of field, and so on. If you can fine-tune your shot, you can experiment and design much more easily.”
Have you ever tried being an in-game photographer yourself? In which game was it and what fascinated you about it? Feel free to write it down here on MeinMMO in the comments.
