When I shifted into digital photography from film there was a clearly delineated set of tiers that Canon had that made a lot of sense to me.

• EOS 1N = 1V = 1D - Full Frame Flagship-Pro: Sports / Journalism.

• EOS 3 = didn't bring it back until R3

• EOS 5 = 5D - Full Frame Semi-Pro: Weddings / Studio / Landscape (when you couldn't afford a Medium Format).

• EOS 10 = 10D - Crop Frame Pro-sumer: rich students and those starting out in photo.

• Entry level = Rebel (3 digit / ###D series) - Everyone else, students, amateurs, enthusiasts, vacation goers, that weird uncle.

By the time I "went pro" the 5D mk II was out and had video, and I worked on movie sets and TV and saw the 5D II being used as a B camera or other uses that made it to screen as "side shots" and things that didn't require the main set cameras. With the success of the video features, canon realized with the higher megapixels they could get a semi-pro cropped frame and introduced the 7D.

• 7D - Sub-Pro: Birders / Music-Video production.

The 7D fit nicely between the 5D and 10D and made sense in the nomenclature.

That's about when I stopped paying attention. I had a 40D and moved up to the 5D mk II immediately because it was such an amazing camera and never looked back. By the time the 6D came out I was like "why?" it didn't seem to fit with the easy to follow 3 pro tiers, and wasn't as clearly separate in functionality from other tiers.

By this time I had the 5D Mk IV and had skipped the Mk III as it wasn't that much of a leap for me from the Mk II. I also tend to buy-in every other generation anyway for money reasons and often I'm not happy with changes in buttons and / features (it STILL makes me crazy that they took a way the zoom in/out buttons when you're in review mode on the */focus point buttons). I digress.

NOW the R series are out and I really don't get what the other tiers are for. The numbering is a little funky and I don't really "get it".

• 1D = R1

• xx = R3?

• 5D = R5

• 6D = R6 (but what is it, or who is it for? it's kinda like an R3R1 lite, but too cheap to be that?)

• 7D = R7 (30mp in a crop?... it's incredible, why is everyone talking about the R6 instead of the R7?)

• xx = R8 what is it? why is it full frame but placed below the 7 series? they cost similar prices.

• 10D = R10

• xx = R50?

• Rebel / ###D = R100

Then there's the R and RP. I kinda felt like those were just canon testing the waters and they weren't sure what they were doing yet, but I'm hearing they might make Mark II versions of one or the other?

Also, with these cameras draining battery so hard, why did they mess with the whole "1 battery to rule them all" setup? Every camera took the LP-E6 batteries except the rebel cameras, as a teacher this makes me nuts because I could order 5D, 7D, 60D/870D and the students could all use the same battery. Now with the lower-tier camera they no longer take the same batteries and it's a nightmare if a kid loses one or we have a buyer buy the wrong camera and then we don't have spares because the new shape/type of battery.

Canon used to have a simple and easy to understand lineup and now it's like... what the heck do I even choose. Even the R5 has been watered down from the 5D, they removed things like the internal GPS and some nice buttons.

Can anyone help me understand where things "fit"? why is the R6 so popular when at the full-frame level you're looking at L series glass anyway when the R7 is way cheaper and seems to be a better camera and is the top-tier cropped frame while also having access to a much less-expensive line of lenses, PLUS the L lenses for birders. But the Birders keep talking about the R6 which doesn't make sense to me if you're trying to get reach and high frame rates. Either I'm missing something or Canon has just got such good advertising that they've fooled the majority of people in spending more money than they need to for lesser stuff. lol. Are they secretly "moving" the Rebel line upward (which is why they got rid of the name?), that would make sense in terms of my battery problem.

To be clear, I'm in the R5/R3/R1 tier which generally makes sense to me even if the 3 series is kinda confusing, but I have students who I'm trying to guide if they are looking to begin working in photography after graduation or even during school. I want to understand which cameras are "bogus" and distractions from the more useful ones at the various "buy-in" price points. Thanks.