A photography buff on Reddit decided to take the Reuters best photographs of 2012 and analyze the EXIF information to look for commonalities. This was then compiled into graphics by another Reddit user, and then published as a news article by petapixel.com.
Some of the stats are illuminating. First, lenses: you'd be in good standing with a 16mm, 24mm, 50mm, and 400mm prime, plus a 16-35mm and 70-200mm zoom. (Gee, I can't resist: where are the DX and CX equivalents of many of those lenses? ;~)
Compare what these pro photojournalists are using against what the camera companies are selling amateurs: the number one kit lens is basically 28-85mm. Yet there's a strong preference in the pro world for wider than 28mm and longer than 85mm; even the zooms that covered midrange often were used towards the extremes. Why? Simple. At the long end it's about positioning: you can't always position yourself where you want to relative to the subject. Long lenses are helpful in "fixing" that problem.
At the other end, it's about subject inclusion, typically near/far relationships. Look at the montage of nine images at the top of Petapixel's article: the right column are all near/far relationship images. Tough to do with a 28mm or 35mm focal length. Much easier to manage with a 16-35mm zoom or even just a 24mm. It doesn't help that a lot of photojournalism happens indoors, and there the critical element is that you can't always back up any further to include something in your frame, thus you often need a wider angle.
But look at the aperture and shutter speed values for these images. f/4 or faster apertures account for over half the images. My guess is that the photographers are trying to use the highest shutter speed they can most of the time (there is a slight anomaly with shutter speeds, with 1/250 and 1/320 being used about one fifth of the time, but this is likely caused by flash use). But if I were a high-end lens designer, I'd be taking a stronger look at how well my lenses perform wide open, because it's clear that pros are using lenses at maximum aperture. Heck, not one image was stopped down to f/22, and images taken past f/8 were rare.
Again, what are camera makers giving consumers, though? f/5.6 lenses and automatic programs that don't necessarily push shutter speed aggressively and which pay no attention to diffraction.
In terms of ISO use, I was struck by how the four lowest ISO whole stop values were the most often used: 200, 400, 800, and 1600. Not a lot of "auto ISO" in there, as auto ISO would be setting third or sixth stop values.
So, if we were designing a pro photojournalism camera from scratch, what would we conclude about how the cameras were actually being used? Well, likely the camera is in aperture-priority mode and the lens left wide open. From there, the photographer is varying ISO in whole stop values to keep shutter speeds up. When flash is used, the camera is always set to maximum flash sync shutter speed. Wow. Do we need any direct controls other than ISO?
Now, obviously this is a very small data set to work with, only 95 images selected as best of the year from an organization that probably is generating more images than that every second. To really get a handle on what's being done, we'd need to do a much more inclusive data analysis, and we'd need to do so amongst numerous pro groups.
But, you know, I'm not sure the data would shift a lot. Photojournalists, in particular, don't like to be making lots of decisions about camera settings, they are trying to capture moments when everything around them is in a constant state of flux. Funny thing, is, though, that pretty much defines amateur photography to a large degree, too: the more things you have to control the less likely you frame and hit the button at "the moment."
The camera maker's solution for the amatuer has always been "more automation." But you know what, I'm not sure that's the right choice, especially given some of the automation decisions that modern cameras make (I'm looking at you, Auto ISO on the Nikon 1).
So here's a simple technique to try: photograph like a Reuter's PJ next time you head out. Bring a wide angle zoom and start with it at the widest focal length. Set aperture priority with your fastest aperture. Change only one camera setting: ISO value to keep your shutter speed in a range you're comfortable that you'll get sharp images from (and if you're really following the rules, set your Nikon body to one-stop increments for ISO ;~). Spend all your remaining energy on just three things: framing, focus, and timing. Note that "framing" may mean moving forward, backward, and sideways! You, not the zoom. (For those that think landscape photography can't be done this way, think again. It's actually very close to the way I learned from Galen Rowell and still practice, only we don't usually set maximum aperture, but rather something like f/8.)
I'll make a small wager: you get better images by concentrating this way. PJs do, so why should you be any different? ;~)