Here is some potentially scientific research on the naming of cameras. You know, Nikon has a D5, Canon a 5D. A Canon Rebel camera in the U.S. is a Kiss camera in Japan. And an IXUS PowerShot camera in the U.S. is an IXY in Japan, and for the rest of the planet a 1300D. So what’s the logic behind giving cameras such fuzzy names? Marketing? Branding?! Gregor Brdnik over at Digital Camera Database explored the bottom of the mystery, and came to the conclusion that, in fact, camera naming “doesn’t make any sense.”
Sure, there is continuity reflected in increased numbers, meaning a newer model with a higher product name number most likely offers more bang for the buck and improved performance.
And then there are cameras with more than one name. There’s no plausible explanation why some manufacturers use different model names for different countries. Because the Japanese can’t pronounce “Rebel”? A Rebel would become a Lebel?!
What about other Asians?
There you go, it’s quite a task to make sense of the naming of cameras.
Gregor says there is no story. And he must know, since his website is based on camera names. 32% of Canon and 20% of Panasonic cameras in his database have multiple names.
And if multiple names are such a brilliant idea, why not use it for ALL of their cameras?
Gregor:
Who knows what camera names mean. To me it looks like most of the time the names are just a random collection of letters and numbers maybe picked by a primate other than human. It rarely makes sense. And why they sometimes use different names for different countries, it’s a mystery and again it doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve never heard any reasonable explanation.
Anyone has an explanation?
Gregor calls it the “confuse a cat principle” — see the video.
Scientifically tested and proven.
Clever marketing people just replaced cat with consumer, which makes total sense since both words start with the letter c. And there you have it. Mystery solved!