Now that the Z8 is announced and shipped, everyone who’s not buying it—which, after all, is a lot of folk—is asking the same question: what’s next?
I wish I knew. Somewhere towards the end of the supply chain problems Nikon seemed to take a detour. I’m aware of three products that didn’t happen as originally planned (and that doesn’t count the long delay on the Road Mapped 200-600mm lens).
We’ve been down this road before with Nikon. The D400 was certainly prototyped, but never released to production, for instance. That created a lengthy new product gap that triggered many D300 owners to start migrating elsewhere. Nikon’s official response was that they should move to FX, but that didn't explain the eventual D500, did it? ;~)
Nikon’s customer-facing side (released products and marketing of them) has always been highly pragmatic and oriented towards what they have to sell today. And what they have today isn’t always what the customer wants today. Nikon’s paternalistic approach—take what we provide you—has always been in conflict with user wishes and demands.
So here we are, once again, waiting for things.
Instead of saying what camera I think is next, let’s examine things from Nikon’s viewpoint: what could they actually produce at the moment?
- Low hanging fruit — A Zf (FX) body is easy enough to create. The Df, Zfc, and any eventual Zf are all what I call parts bin cameras. Take the parts you have and put a legacy UX on them. But I don’t see how a Zf would solve any customer base complaints for Nikon, particularly as they seem to sell dials-and-knobs cameras at higher cost than the equivalent body with buttons.
The other low-hanging fruit is to push the Z6 II guts into other bodies. For example, the Z5 body getting Z6 II guts to create a Z5 II. I believe this is similar to what they’ll eventually do, but they can’t really do that until they have a Z6 III and have sold off most of the Z6 II bodies, can they?
More likely is taking the Z6 II guts and “going Sony”, i.e. creating a vlog style video-oriented camera. Call it the Z6V (ZV is taken, and V by itself was for Nikon 1). With EXPEED7 such a camera would get Nikon’s best raw video and 10-bit capabilities, and probably a somewhat better autofocus performance. The big Z-mount means virtually any lens can be mounted via adapter, something the video crowd would love. Concentrating on video usage also differentiates the result from any future Z6 II. Given Nikon executives’ recent statements, a video-only camera seems likely, and perhaps sooner rather than later given the fact that Nikon is actually talking about video creators so much these days. - Fruit requiring a ladder — I’ve written it before, but the real issue for Nikon at the moment is image sensors. They need a better image sensor to put into a Z6 III iteration, they need a higher megapixel image sensor (which now seems likely for an eventual Z7 III or Z8x), and they need more pixels and faster performance for a mid-range DX body, or a stacked sensor for a high-end DX body.
There’s the rub, and what I believe led to the change in direction Nikon made somewhere towards the end of 2022 that resulted in the Z8 as it is: none of those image sensors are ready. Fabs were full, supply chain was constrained, travel was constrained, so all that “new” sensor stuff quickly became critical path items with unknown future dates.
Some of you will say “Nikon should just buy the existing Sony Semiconductor sensors.” Specifically, you’ll point to the 26mp sensor used in the X-H2S (stacked DX), the 33mp sensor used in the A7 Mark IV, and the 61mp sensor used in the A7R Mark V. First, I’m not sure the first two of those aren’t tied up with some sort of time exclusivity arrangement. Second, the last sensor is clearly available but probably doesn’t suffice for Nikon’s desire for no more mechanical shutter cameras.
As I’ve noted before, tell me the image sensors Nikon will be using for future cameras and I’ll tell you what the camera is. But if I have to guess at what image sensors Nikon has available, well, anything is possible, it just might not be probable ;~).
At least for FX users, there’s nothing wrong with the current lineup. Competence versus price is something that Nikon excels at right now; they’ve become the low-cost provider for every full frame mirrorless product point. It also seems that Nikon is perfectly happy with a 10-15% market share as long as they maintain profitability at their desired levels (they’re currently exceeding it).
So I don’t think Nikon is in any hurry to introduce new cameras at the moment. As with during the long missing-D400 era, Nikon is back to the “just buy FX” mantra for the middle of their customer base. Eventually they’ll sort through the issues that have delayed camera iteration and things will seem more “normal” to customers again.
Frankly, though, that missing D400 was one of the things that set up Sony as the competitor that eventually would pass them. The lack of a middle camera that customers really wanted—plus some fumbles in the D7xxx line—caused an awful lot of leaking, sampling, and switching as Sony iterated, iterated, iterated. Long silences tend to get filled by competitors' statements.
The real problem today with no Z70, Z80, or Z90 for Nikon is Fujifilm. Here we have another competitor that would like to pass Nikon (and that would ultimately be problematic for Nikon if they did). Fujifilm has recently pushed APS-C (DX) sensors to places Nikon users can only dream of (40mp, or 26mp stacked). It’s now the D500 owners that are feeling like they’re neglected, and there are fewer of those to piss off, so Nikon shouldn’t really want to lose any of them.
So, most Nikon enthusiasts today are thinking something like this:
- What Nikon Needs: Z70, Z90, Z6 III, Z7 III
- What Nikon Might Supply Quickly: Zf, Z6V
Which means my email fills up with lots of complaints about missing products. I feel like we’ve been through this scenario before.
