Rebel without a Kiss – making sense of EOS camera names

Canon is a global company with a diverse range of products in it’s portfolio, yet stop anyone in the street and ask them what Canon makes and you will most probably get one of two answers; cameras or copiers. However sub-brands such as PowerShot, EOS, IXUS, imagePROGRAF and imageRUNNER often elude many people. Ask a photographer about his camera and often he shortens the name to the model number so the EOS 5D Mark II becomes the five-dee-two.

Canon EOS cameras have a long history of having regional specific naming, in those days of film cameras it was often used to indicate specific configurations for certain markets and price points. The old EOS 5 film camera with eye-control focus was the EOS A2e in the USA, in addition the Americans had a version without eye control focus called the EOS A2 that was never marketed in Europe.

In more modern digital times the regional models have followed some simple patterns and some confusing numbering. For Japan the ‘marketing’ name used is Kiss and in the USA the name is Rebel, Europe with all it’s languages sticks with numbers. This all started with the EOS 300D launched in 2003, but in America it was called the EOS Digital Rebel and in Japan the EOS Kiss Digital. Since then the region names have only applied to the lower end models an EOS 7D is the same all over the world.