It is pretty tough to make original photographs these days, with more than 3.5 billion people owning a camera.

Find yourself lucky enough to be at one of the top landmarks on Instagram shared by visitors, and it is even more challenging to create an original photograph.

Sony Mobile has compiled a list of the top 30 landmarks on Instagram. Going one step further, the research indicates what percentage of these photos shared are taken from the same three popular angles.

Same old photos

Feel like you’ve seen the same old pictures of the Eiffel Tower, like, a million times? Well, photos of the world’s most photographed landmark have been shared almost 5,000,000 times. 35% of these photos are from the same three angles.

Big Ben comes second on the list with around 2,500,000 million shares, 50% of which are from the same three popular angles.

Within the top 30 list, at 85% the Machu Picchu takes unwanted top spot for the most amount of photos taken from the same spot.

Essentially we are seeing the same photos again and again. These top landmarks are starting to feel, well, less inspiring.

Research says that when photographs of landmarks like these are taken from unusual perspectives, they are around 50% more likely to be ‘liked’ on Instagram.

In addition, half of those surveyed said they choose their holiday based on others’ holiday snaps, with 45% looking to Instagram for inspiration of where to photograph and visit.

Photos with a difference using the Sony Xperia XZ

Sony has collaborated with three professional travel photographers to capture some of these landmarks in a new way. The images were captured on the Xperia XZ, ‘the pocket-sized professional camera with ‘true-to-life’ colour image capture’.

Spanish photographer Lluís Salvadó is one of these professionals and offers his top tips when visiting famous landmarks on your travels.

• Play around with colours and brightness, it’s amazing how different one scene can look with some clever camera tricks
• If you’re struggling to get an original shot play around with reflective surfaces, a famous landmark can be transformed by a little water
• Look for beauty in the architecture around you, not just the landmark as a whole. There can be a very artistic quality to structural things
• Try out a new perspective and get some shots from high above or below the subject, don’t be scared to experiment with compositions
• Use people and their silhouettes to give a shot a sense of place and time, and play around with forced perspective too

So if you find yourself lucky enough to be taking in one of these famous landmarks on Instagram, why not try capturing them for yourself from a different perspective? We’d love to see your efforts!

Most popular 30 landmarks are:

Rank	Landmark	Location	No. of Instagram images	% from top three angles
1	Eiffel Tower	France	4,654,699	35%
2	Big Ben	UK	2,435,223	50%
3	The Louvre	France	1,740,908	43%
4	Empire State Building	USA	1,570,167	45%
5	Burj Khalifa	UAE	1,446,682	43%
6	Notre Dame Cathedral	France	1,330,688	53%
7	St Peter’s Basilica	Vatican City	1,131,705	30%
8	Time Square	USA	1,100,344	54%
9	Sagrada Familia	Spain	936,216	55%
10	Colosseum	Italy	860,248	66%
11	Statue of Liberty	USA	813,930	74%
12	Machu Picchu	Peru	745,815	85%
13	Alhambra	Spain	745,716	35%
14	Borobudur	Indonesia	667,086	50%
15	Red Square	Russia	591,430	52%
16	Christ the Redeemer	Brazil	581,523	71%
17	Taj Mahal	India	571,070	38%
18	Burj Al Arab	UAE	534,562	56%
19	Mount Fuji	Japan	533,696	77%
20	Buckingham Palace	UK	498,280	58%
21	Tokyo Tower	Japan	485,744	44%
22	Ha Long Bay	Thailand	475,390	57%
23	Arc de Triomphe	France	449,856	49%
24	Berlin Wall	Germany	434,869	21%
25	Trevi Fountain	Italy	427,708	74%
26	Great Wall of China	China	412,603	72%
27	Sydney Opera House	Australia	408,919	44%
28	Table Mountain	South Africa	386,723	61%
29	Park Güell	Spain	383,853	32%
30	Sacré-Cœur Basilica	France	376,730	59%