# Nikon Announces D6 Camera and Z-mount Lenses



## VidThreeNorth (Feb 12, 2020)

"Nikon announces new flagship D6 camera plus two new Nikkor lenses for Z-mount"
posted Feb 11, 2020 by Dave Pardue, Imaging Resource
"Nikon announces new flagship D6 camera plus two new Nikkor lenses for Z-mount"

Due to a long pre-announcement leak Nikon made clear that this camera was "coming" as far back as September 2019, and it was anticipated as a new flagship sports/news camera.  Oddly, I still don't have a price or shipment date, but I think I probably just missed it somewhere.


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## TWX (Feb 12, 2020)

I find it interesting that both Canon's and Nikon's newest top-end pro cameras are in the 20 megapixel range.  I have to assume that given the target market for these cameras are true professionals, if someone can't do it with 20 megapixels, they probably can't do it at all and really don't have a lot of business using this camera at these sorts of events.


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## zulu42 (Feb 12, 2020)

VidThreeNorth said:


> I still don't have a price or shipment date, but I think I probably just missed it somewhere.


MSRP $6,500 available 04/2020


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## Designer (Feb 12, 2020)

We wonder why this is called their "flagship", given the depressing lack of any real advancements.


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## TWX (Feb 12, 2020)

Designer said:


> We wonder why this is called their "flagship", given the depressing lack of any real advancements.


If the camera was perceived by its users as being nearly perfect, do you think that they're going to change much?

Based on this comparison it looks like the changes are entirely evolutionary.  They've improved shutter speed, added electronic shutter, improved the autofocus system slightly, updated the media to newer/faster, improved the video recording runtime, improved connectivity out of the camera to computers, added extra audio and video codecs and extra file formats for still images, and added what basically amount to filters or presets for various shooting modes.

If you're a professional that already shoots with the predecessor(s), would you want to have to learn a brand new camera interface or all-new features?  To me this makes sense, if the old camera was entirely well-suited to its target users and just needed a few usability tweaks and a very mild amount of new features to keep up with demand, why change much?


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## Derrel (Feb 12, 2020)

The D850 is for the megapixel chasers.  The D5 and D6 have lower MP counts because the target market wants around 20 megapixels, tops.


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## TWX (Feb 12, 2020)

Derrel said:


> The D850 is for the megapixel chasers.  The D5 and D6 have lower MP counts because the target market wants around 20 megapixels, tops.


It wouldn't surprise me that even if they might like to have more than 20MP, they want fast continuous shooting speed and the ability to continuously write to media even more.  Both the new Nikon and the new Canon are sixteen frames per second through the viewfinder, the Canon is 20 frames per second in live-view.  That takes a LOT of processing power and memory to do something at 20MP with all that data, any higher resolution would undoubtedly come with lower continuous shooting speeds in order to keep the battery life up and the heat from the microprocessor down.

General improvements in microprocessor technology might allow for higher write-speeds, but then the companies would have to decide if they want to apply those write-speeds to even faster continuous shooting speeds, or to resolution, or to apply some improvements to both.  I'm going to guess the first, since it appears that professional quality results don't even require 20MP.


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## VidThreeNorth (Feb 12, 2020)

A lot of what is happening with the latest Sports/News cameras has to do with getting the pictures to the market.  It is "extended workflow" looking at the Internet.  There is also some video upgrading.  As I have written before, I think that video does not really fit this market, but I could be wrong. . . .


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## jcdeboever (Feb 13, 2020)

Wow, as Designer keenly seen as I, what the heck is going on with those specs? Thats the D6? Really? Doesn't look like a Nikon flagship upgrade to me. What a joke. I'm not talking about megapixels either, its for low light and sports action. Might as well save your money or move over to Canon.


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## Braineack (Feb 13, 2020)

Maybe now I can finally afford a D4s


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## tirediron (Feb 13, 2020)

Derrel said:


> The D850 is for the megapixel chasers.  The D5 and D6 have lower MP counts because the target market wants around 20 megapixels, tops.


And for studio work... it's no low-light queen, but for studio work, the 850 can't be beat.  That said, the D6...  somewhat underwhelming.  Are we getting to the limit of technology?  Sort of the way we did with computer CPUs a few years back?


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## tirediron (Feb 13, 2020)

Braineack said:


> Maybe now I can finally afford a D4s


Definitely looking at adding a D4s / D5 to the stable.


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## JoeW (Feb 13, 2020)

Derrel said:


> The D850 is for the megapixel chasers.  The D5 and D6 have lower MP counts because the target market wants around 20 megapixels, tops.


Derrel is spot on from my experience.  People in the field who may be using a sat phone or their cell to transmit photos back to the editor don't want files that are 40 megapixels.  It's not that there isn't value in having a ton of megapixels available.  It's that for most journalists, you are expected to do very little editing--maybe some cropping, exposure, sharpening.  But you're not supposed to substantially change the image through your edits.


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## Derrel (Feb 13, 2020)

I shot sports for two area newspapers in 2005 -2006 and we sent final images in at 200 ppi, 800 pixels on the long axis...and they looked good...i used the 2.7 MP Nikon D1h and the 12.2 MP Nikon D2X...plenty of resolution. Great "file economy" ... full coverage on a high school track meet would be around 700 frames with a camera that shot at 5 frames per second.

Here are a couple of publication frames downsized. For faster transmission over the modem line . Plenty of detail from downsampled 12-megapixel images from the d2x


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## cgw (Feb 13, 2020)

Nikon "gets" the needs of its pro market far better than what's left of their prosumer/"enthusiast" segment. The belated foray into MILCs suggests that. Besides, how thick is the margin on a D6 sale?


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## jcdeboever (Feb 13, 2020)

The D6 probably will not sell well. I don't see anything that screams, I am gonna sell my D4 or 5 and get this.


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## jcdeboever (Feb 13, 2020)

tirediron said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> > Maybe now I can finally afford a D4s
> ...


Doesn't the DF have the same sensor as the D4? A lot less money...


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## Derrel (Feb 13, 2020)

The Df and the D4 both have 16- something megapixel sensors. BIg pixels, spectacular low-light performance, good file size economy. If you need a bigger file for printing large, then the one-digit Nikon cameras of recent manufacture are not for you.


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## Derrel (Feb 13, 2020)

jcdeboever said:


> Wow, as Designer keenly seen as I, what the heck is going on with those specs? Thats the D6? Really? Doesn't look like a Nikon flagship upgrade to me. What a joke. I'm not talking about megapixels either, its for low light and sports action. Might as well save your money or move over to Canon.



I really do not understand where you are coming from with this. I have an idea that the autofocus system will be incredible. With 105 cross-type sensors This camera should grab Focus even in bad light.


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## Braineack (Feb 13, 2020)

You guys are crazy. It can grab focus at f/8 down to -4.5ev...

Better focusing system, better processor, built-in WiFi and gps, better shutter, can record videos much longer and better USB protocol, better storage protocol, better battery.

Like what more do you want?


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## Braineack (Feb 13, 2020)

jcdeboever said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> > Braineack said:
> ...




The dF is nowhere near the same league as the d4s.


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## tirediron (Feb 13, 2020)

Braineack said:


> You guys are crazy. It can grab focus at f/8 on all sensors down to -4.5ev...
> 
> Better focusing system, better processor, built-in WiFi and gps, better shutter, can record videos much longer and better USB protocol, better storage protocol.
> 
> Like what more do you want?


I don't think the point was that this was not a great camera, but rather that it wasn't so much better it's predecessor as to make everyone with a D4s or D5 run out and buy a couple.  Lots of enhancements and improvements, but I don't see anything that would make me put a D5 out at the curb to get one of these.


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## Braineack (Feb 13, 2020)

No. But NASA might buy another 50 of them...


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## Derrel (Feb 13, 2020)

We are now in the era of incremental upgrades...not big leapfrogging...it is now 2020, not 2005...it is more about perfecting and refining than about inventing and innovating. We are no longer in the era where a new model makes people rush out to buy it in droves.

Success or evaluation of a model should not be Based upon its sales success. The same thing goes for quality. I would venture to say that the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Is a much better made and a better car than a Kia Sephia, even though  Kia probably sells, at minimum, 1000 times more vehicles per year. If we are to look at sales volume, then McDonald's is the world's greatest hamburger restaurant.


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## jcdeboever (Feb 14, 2020)

Derrel said:


> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> > Wow, as Designer keenly seen as I, what the heck is going on with those specs? Thats the D6? Really? Doesn't look like a Nikon flagship upgrade to me. What a joke. I'm not talking about megapixels either, its for low light and sports action. Might as well save your money or move over to Canon.
> ...



I was thinking it would be something more. Like something that would seperate them from the competition. I have a hard time with the upgrades listed as being significant considering this is a flagship product, Olympic year in Japan, and Nikons pedigree. I was expecting more but what do I know...


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## Braineack (Feb 14, 2020)

When the D850 and D5 first came out i saw a lot of comparisons for the AF, and the D5 blew the D850 away.  Now the D6 is even better than that -- and that's the whole selling point of these workhorses.

On top of that it now uses CFexpress, and can write up to 1400 mb/sec.  The D5 is limited to 400 mb/sec write speeds.

The D6 was really playing catch up to the D1X, with greater emphasis over AF than SS. I realize the 1DX can shoot a bit faster, and especially in LV, but I'm not seeing the operators of these camera using LV at all.

But for the same price as the D5 (which has now dropped by $1000) you get a nice bump in performance, just like the D780, it's nice they are keeping their model lines modernized with their current tech.


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## TWX (Feb 14, 2020)

jcdeboever said:


> The D6 probably will not sell well. I don't see anything that screams, I am gonna sell my D4 or 5 and get this.


Do you have a D4 or D5?

I suppose my best analogy given my professional field would be in network test tools.  I have a tool that tests copper pinouts and network link up to 100BaseTX, CDP neighbor identification (ie what's at the other end of the cable), protocol testing, and can do up to Class III PoE testing.  I buy a tool that can still do copper pinouts, but the network link is now up to 1000BaseT, still does CDP but adds LLDP too, still does protocol testing, and can do Class IV PoE testing.  As a professional I make that purchase because while the changes are evolutionary, I can benefit from those changes, and because as a professional I can write-off the cost of the purchase of the tool as a business expense, depreciate that cost over time.

Professional photographers might well find themselves in the same position.  The older model works fine, but the newer model has incremental improvements in existing features (the camera-side) and some fairly substantial improvements in the back-end for basic connectivity to get the images out of the camera.  Depending on what services Nikon is offering, it wouldn't surprise me if they have or will introduce a service that allows a Wi-Fi connected camera to connect to Nikon's servers to mirror the data, caching it for later retrieval or for retrieval by say, an editor working in a remote office.  This allows the photographer to concentrate on the pictures, while the editor can make editorial decisions as to which photos to use/purchase, especially when covering live events where the value of the information drops the longer it takes to come to publication.

The familiarity in the design is actually the strong suit.  The photographer picks it up and it works like their old one but _better_, the only things to relearn are all improvements.  Same with Canon's new offering.  It's familiar, it's just a bit _better_ than the old one was.


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## cgw (Feb 14, 2020)

jcdeboever said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > jcdeboever said:
> ...



With respect, what exactly did you have in mind? This is a top-shelf pro tool--not something duking it out with Instant Pots for shelf space at Best Buy. It has to work, bug-free straight from the box with none of the embarrassing glitches/recalls Nikon's suffered recently. Those who need it will get it because of the specs. Online whining about the insufficiency of the same specs won't matter to them. Sorry but it's no gold-ingot pooping unicorn.


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## Derrel (Feb 14, 2020)

It's going to be a solid, solid workhorse, no matter what Canon has in the same space.

This is aimed at working photographers. For other groups, there are other offerings/choices.


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## BillM (Feb 16, 2020)

The people who are buying this will not be selling their D4s or D5 to buy it. They will be retiring their D3s backup body and moving their D4 or whatever to backup duty, or in my case hanging from my left side. While the D6 will get attached to the big lens. And yes, I placed my order within 30 seconds of getting the email from Nikon. Really looking forward to  testing out the low light focus ability. And as far as 20 MP is concerned I have no issues with 16 MP photos on a billboard so no real need to up it more than that. 




 

And a new one that will be going up soon, this might not be the final design


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## TWX (Feb 20, 2020)

FergusRed said:


> I find it interesting that both Canon's and Nikon's newest top-end pro cameras are in the 20 megapixel range. I have to assume that given the target market for these cameras are true professionals, if someone can't do it with 20 megapixels, they probably can't do it at all and really don't have a lot of business using this camera at these sorts of events.



That's *AMAZING*, I felt the EXACT same way!



TWX said:


> I find it interesting that both Canon's and Nikon's newest top-end pro cameras are in the 20 megapixel range.  I have to assume that given the target market for these cameras are true professionals, if someone can't do it with 20 megapixels, they probably can't do it at all and really don't have a lot of business using this camera at these sorts of events.


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## Designer (Feb 20, 2020)

TWX said:


> I find it interesting that both Canon's and Nikon's newest top-end pro cameras are in the 20 megapixel range.  I have to assume that given the target market for these cameras are true professionals, if someone can't do it with 20 megapixels, they probably can't do it at all and really don't have a lot of business using this camera at these sorts of events.


You shouldn't fall for the "megapixel race".   Fewer sensor sites in the same area usually mean larger sites, leading to better low-light performance.


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