The Canon Powershot G5 was recently released, following on from the previous G3 model. A few PhotographyBLOG visitors wondered what happened to the G4 name. Well, it appears that guest Krishna was right when they said “In Japanese characters(kanji) numeral 4 also represents death/bad thing and hence is avioded in most of the version numbers of products”, at least according to the UK magazine Amateur Photographer.

AP say on page 28 of the 19th July issue that “the truth behind the leap from 3 to 5 is one based on cultural superstition - in Japan, the number 4 is considered unlucky. This is because the pronunciation of 4 - “shi” - is the same pronunciation as death. This is the reason why the EOS range jumps from the EOS 3 to EOS 5, and why the latest IXUS digital compacts bucks the trend of the IXUS v2 and IXUS v3 models by becoming the IXUS 400. Indeed, to find a Canon camera with a model number 4 you have to look back as far as the 1950s to the Canon IV.”

So now you know :-)

By the way, Amateur Photographer loved the Canon G5, awarding it a rating of 92% and summarising “In short, the five-million-pixel camera market contains a lot of good cameras, but very few exceptional ones. The Powershot G5 must certainly be counted among their number and is arguably the best that we have seen so far.”