The rumors have been all over the place. No EVF, EVF. Articulating screen, fixed screen, tilting screen. No cards, single card. Z50 replacement, Z50 supplement. New image sensor, old image sensor. To be introduced in mid-2021, then late 2021, then mid-2022. EXPEED6, EXPEED7. US$500, US$800, US$1000. Yes, those are all things I heard from someone claiming they had seen or been told about the camera. From the few reliable contacts in Japan who would say anything, all I could really tell is that Nikon had a new entry camera being prepped for the Z System and it had gotten a lot of internal discussion about what it should exactly be and whether they should release it at all. So maybe some of those contradictory things were actually tested and considered.
Well, today we finally know the details, as Nikon introduced the Z30. The actual camera is pretty much as one of the more persistent rumors had suggested: essentially a Z50 II without an EVF, but Nikon's marketing is promoting that as an intentional pivot to "video content creators." I'll have more to say about that down below (as in "nope" ;~), but first let's provide the details:
- 20mp BSI sensor, EXPEED6 (same as the Z50)
- Articulating 3" Rear LCD (same as the Zfc)
- No EVF (but otherwise same body/controls as the Z50)
- Vlogging accessory pack (US$150, shown above) that cobbles things already available for Z50/Zfc
- US$710 body only, US$850 with 16-50mm kit lens
Before we get to a fuller discussion of what tactical or strategic goals the Z30 meets, let me first answer the question "will it sell?" Yes, Nikon will sell more than enough Z30's to justify its development. Even though the price point is still a little high (you need a lens), the Z30 will almost certainly add another mediocre increment to Z-mount sales. (The Z50 has never been what I'd call a top seller, and the Zfc had a brief moment when it was a stylistic choice of some, but Nikon has not gotten the same level of DX-to-FX sales in the Z-mount that they did in the F-mount. Not even close. Thus my use of the word mediocre.)
I'm a little surprised that Nikon didn't emphasize streaming for the Z30. The Zfc is my streaming camera, and it's excellent at that; the Z30 will replace it. Definitely a market for the new camera there. And yes, despite one glaring issue (see below), its a nice product for basic video creation, too. Plus: there are still enough folk wanting to sample the Z-mount without paying a ton of money (the Foot-in-Water group, a subset of the Samplers). There are enough Z-mount users now that an always carry, more pocketable camera is a useful addition to the gear closet. Plus Nikon has enough Big Box distribution still that having a true consumer model(s) provides a place to push the Z30.
Thus, I expect the Z30 to sell 50-100k units annually. It would do better than that if Nikon had more DX lenses (buzz, buzz) and a high-DX camera such as a Z70 or Z90. Why? Because right now we have a dearth of options for the ILC nature of the Z30, and the Z30, Z50, and Zfc are basically just the same camera in somewhat different forms; the only true growth path from a Z30 presently would be to full frame, which is a pretty big leap.
The glaring issue is lenses. Will Nikon's huge vlogging/video creator emphasis on the Z30—it's still a perfectly usable stills camera—those folk are going to look at it and say "where's the wide angle zoom?" Heck, where's the fast wide angle prime? (Answer: Viltrox 13mm ;~) Seriously folks, I can't say BUZZ, BUZZ loud enough. (By the way, the very first bullet in Nikon's marketing for the Z30 is "help you create soft, blurred backgrounds". Uh, with an f/3.5-6.3 lens? Have they looked at what the smartphones can do and what their kit lens does? ;~)
Nikon keeps making the same entry-level, consumer model mistake over and over (dating back to the EM film SLR and the seven E lenses), so we have to conclude that either they see entry-level products as only temporary necessities, or they have failed to recognize the mistake(s) they keep making. One problem, of course, is that Nikon rarely puts top team members managing the low-end cameras (the Nikon 1 was an exception, though the DSLR side tied that manager's hands behind his back first). Then they decide to starve their efforts with minimal lens set. I'll wager a Benjamin that Canon quickly will do better with their nascent RF-S (APS-C) lineup than Nikon does with their now nearly three year old Z-DX lineup.
Most of the Internet posts both prior to and now after the launch of the Z30 have centered around whether or not Nikon even needs a camera like the Z30. A sub-component of that is whether or not an entry-level camera is even needed (see also my Nikon strategy comments, below).
My answer would tend to be yes. It's a very big leap from even the best iPhone to a mid-level mirrorless camera. That's a leap in quality, performance, and in function, but particularly it's a huge jump up in complexity. And, of course, there's the issue of price. The complexity and price problems mean that it's a huge friction to get someone to make the leap from an iPhone to, say, a Z6. While a Z5 and the DX cameras help with the price issue, they don't solve the complexity friction. The Z30 is functional and approachable enough that it will attract some of those vlogger/video creators that are currently just using phones.
The customer the camera companies most need to attract into the interchangeable lens camera (ILC) world is the young person who's active in social media and creative-minded, but who is starting to realize that there are limits to a phone-based approach. That person doesn't have a lot of disposable income, and wants mostly to take a clear step forward, not a leap across the Grand Canyon. The operative question isn't how you and I—the readers of this site are on the high-end enthusiast side and quite experienced—react to the Z30, but how that potential young customer does. My long-held question is whether Nikon—or any of the other camera companies, for that matter—sees any customer clearly.
My answer is no, they don't.
The long-held practice by the Japanese consumer electronic companies is that to create an entry-level product you take your higher end product(s) and just de-content them. The problem with this approach today for cameras is that the consumer the camera companies needs to attract isn't exactly asking for a simpler and less expensive version of an existing pro product. Again, the operative assumption is that they instead want to move into things that their phone can't do, but they also don't want to lose the things that their phone can do. The Japanese are de-contenting downward, the customer wants to have content added upward. Those two things aren't meeting in the middle ;~).
In this sense, the Z30 is mostly a de-contented Z50 (no EVF), it fails the "user needed product" test. Of course, Nikon feels "burned" by the Nikon 1, which wasn't a de-contented camera at all. The problem there is due to the quake, tsunami, and flood, the Nikon 1 was about the only thing Nikon could make in quantity at the time, and they were overpricing it to try to keep revenues up. Remember, it had some novel features that would tend attract that young, creative-minded user, including Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector (both of which should be in a low-end ILC, but aren't). It was also, by far, the cheapest camera to produce (despite the hand-painted Nikon 1 on the front).
One final thing that's getting a lot of attention (again) is what does Nikon mean by "entry-level models" versus "mid-high-end models." Those are the words used in the Nikon business results and strategy documents that all Nikon executives are quoting from, and there's a specific chart in one of presentation slides that indicates Nikon isn't expecting to make any entry models by their FY2025 (which would be mostly in 2024, though there's some conflict in terms of what year the Nikon executives are actually referring to).
So what is this new camera? Entry-level or mid/high-level? By sleight of hand, the Z30 entry model becomes a mid-level vlogging choice ;~O.
Another of the statements somewhat hidden in Nikon's strategic documents is that there's also an influx of young users who want video capability. It seems that Nikon is trying to grab onto those folk while there's still grabbing to be done, but eventually wanting to move those users up market. So "entry for now, but mid/high later" seems to be a thing in Nikon's planning that's not being specifically said.
