Originally posted by tvdtvdtvd And what will come after the D899? I still affirm sequential model numbering is road to a dead end, just as the K-1 was an immediate dead end
that forced a ditch into the grass to present the K-1(too).
I never said it's not conducive to long term naming system, just that it's very ordered and, to me, easy to understand. But they could always go to D900. Personally, I think that the skipping of numbers (I.e.: going from D300 to D500, or D810 to D850) isn't a good naming scheme for long term series. If you want a decent long term system, increasing only by 10's isn't too bad. Starting from D800, you get 10 iterations before the line runs out and you either need to continue the line in the 900's or end the line and have the 900 line be the start a 'new' line. Same with the D500 series. If they wanted the numbers from 100 to 500 to be used for a single series of cameras, they could have simply picked up at 400 instead of 500. Nikon would then have 400 and 500 available before running into the start of the FF camera numberings. Instead, now they can't advance that line unless they decide to advance by 10s or kill the 600 line and use the 600 line as a continuation of their advanced APS-C line.
With Pentax, they've shorted themselves naming wise by jumping from K-7 to K-5 after only 1 model then K-5 to K-3. Granted, there were 3 models in the K-5 line but if they had kept advancing the models while staying in the same lines, they'd have significantly more naming options to choose from regarding their future cameras. They can't go back down the list (K-8, K-6, K-4) because then it would signal that the camera is a lower specc'd model and isn't the K-3II successor that everyone wants. They can't really go up because they probably want to reserve K-2 for a potential future FF camera and they wouldn't want to use K-0 because it would be signalling that it's replacing the K-1 as flagship (and that the guys in charge of naming have gone out of their skulls). Their only options, really, are to 1) either come up with a completely creative name not based on the current naming system, 2) extend the K-3 line to K-3III, or 3) completely revamp the naming system entirely renaming currently available cameras. Option 3 is most likely, probably, almost certainly not in the picture because it would cause a lot of confusion among current Pentax users. That's something that they don't need
In conclusion, the naming conventions of Nikon and Pentax are elegantly simple and relatively easy to understand but not really optimized for the naming of future products.