If you've decided to buy a Sony camera for the outstanding technology, ease of use and other good reasons, which one should you get? The company has a number of lineups on offer, including the A1, A7 and A9... but wait, is that an "A" or the Greek symbol for "alpha?" Some of those A7 models also have letter suffixes, like A7C, A7R and A7S, along with roman numerals afterwards (III, IV, V, etc.). Then, there are models with much bigger numbers like the A6400 and A6600, some that start with "RX" and others with "ZV" in the name. It's confusing, but there is some logic to it.

Sony's camera lineup can be divided into two categories, mirrorless and compact. Both have features like electronic viewfinders and rear displays, but mirrorless cameras use interchangeable lenses, while compact models have fixed lenses.

The company's mirrorless models all have the same prefix: α. In case you didn't quite notice, that's not an "a," but the symbol for "alpha," the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Nobody except Sony uses that, though; most of us just say "alpha" or use the uppercase letter "A." Sometimes, confusingly, the cameras are referred to as "Alpha A7 V," for instance.

Within the "A" lineup, Sony has two categories, namely full-frame and cropped-frame (also called APS-C) cameras. Full-frame cameras have larger sensors (the same size as 35mm film) that allow you to blur the background behind subjects more and shoot clearer photos at night. As a rule of thumb, they're generally more expensive than Sony's APS-C models.

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