The Possibilities Ahead

Warning: this article is not me saying what Nikon will do or even should do, but rather what could be done. For some reason, a lot of folk remember my earlier similar mirrorless and DSLR articles as "predicting" various features and models, and thus my "predictions" were wrong. I once suggested, for instance, that when Nikon decided to return to mirrorless they could do so with the F-mount or a new mount. There were pluses and minuses to both approaches. Nikon obviously chose the new mount approach.

With the Z9 kicking off a new era in the ILC realm, one has to wonder just how prepared Nikon is to go all in with this approach. 

As "hot" and viral as the Z9 launch has been, I've been getting some angst from people who want cameras at the lower levels or from people that don't want a "big" camera. So it's probably appropriate to discuss what the Z9 may mean to the entire Nikon mirrorless lineup, and lay out some possibilities. Of course, the Zfc is another marker that has provoked some angst, so "what comes next" is becoming an issue Nikon needs to address, and we're all looking for answers.

Someone said to me that Nikon needs to publish a Body Road Map. Cameras are a bit different than lenses, though. People will sit and wait for a camera if they know it is coming. Cameras are what drive the entire sales ecosystem for a camera company, so Nikon wouldn't want to give away their hand too much, lest they dry up their current body sales. (This is sometimes called the Osborne Effect, though that's incorrect. Osborne didn't fail because it pre-announced products, it failed because it deliberately delayed products when cash flow was low, mostly due to a change in CEO and his [poorly chosen] priorities. Disclosure: I was the second most visible person at Osborne, and highly involved in product development, so I have just a little bit of visibility into what actually happened ;~) 

The time for a Camera Road Map would have been at the announcement of the Z System line, and it would have been deliberately vague, as in something like "we'll develop a full line of mirrorless cameras, both DX and FX."

That said, we can surmise a lot about where things stand by both naming and timing of what we've already seen. 

Nikon's new naming scheme leaves full frame gaps (Z1 to Z4, Zf, Z8), and crop-sensor gaps (Z10 to Z40, Z60 to Z90 ;~). Nikon has never run out of names before (there's no D900 DSLR, for instance), and they've never filled the implied line all at once. Thus, I don't think we'll see 10 full frame cameras and 10 crop-sensor cameras at any given time. Well, I take that back slightly: older generation models left on the market may sometimes give us that many at some point in the future. For instance, right now we have six full frame cameras (Z5, Z6, Z6 II, Z7, Z7 II, Z9). But only four of them are "current."

The generations of individual models have tended to come on two-year intervals for the non-entry and non-flagship models. If that continues to be true:

  • Z50 II is overdue (or alternatively, would appear two years after the Zfc, in 2023).
  • Z6 III would appear in late 2022
  • Z7 III would appear in late 2022

The Z5 is more likely to follow the D600/D750 strategy, which is to let the camera sit on the market for more than two years without update, because that's how you milk the unit volume to pay back R&D money you weren't getting back quickly at a low list price.

You probably already see where I'm going with this: the two critical updates we have some ability to predict timing on are the Z6 and Z7. But Nikon just launched a shutterless Z9. Which brings us to the title of this article: possibilities. 

I see three primary possibilities in the upcoming Z6/Z7 iterations:

  1. Stacked sensors and EXPEED7 for both updates. The Z7 III could simply get the Z9 pass-me-down approach, the Z6 III would require another new stacked sensor. Stacked sensor development is costly, and it's appearing that Nikon is doing this on their own, so Nikon would be absorbing all that R&D.
  2. Stacked sensor for the Z7 update, not for the Z6, both get EXPEED7. EXPEED7 is something I expect in virtually every new camera now, as volume helps pay back its R&D faster. Is the combination of EXPEED7 and a new non-stacked sensor enough to move the focus/EVF experience forward? Difficult to say, but I'd guess yes.
  3. EXPEED7 for both updates, but no (totally) new sensors. See that latter part of #2. 

Historically, Nikon has done all three (in generalized form). I note that Nikon has just announced that they've increased their new product and R&D spending for the second half of their fiscal year, which could mean that they're going to be more aggressive, rather than more passive, in updating cameras. 

EXPEED7 could likely drive the focus benefits of the Z9 downward, no matter what the image sensor choices end up being. Which might be enough to distinguish new models on its own. Still, once you change the world (no mechanical shutter) people expect the world to stay changed. Nikon likes changing things at the top, then pushing them down the stack of models.

Others have suggested different approaches Nikon could take. I'll add just one full iteration of those to this article lest we end up with another tl;dr tome:

  • Z9 - 46 MP - competitor to Sony A1
  • Z9s - 24 MP - sports / high-ISO oriented, competitor to Canon R3
  • Z8 - 46 MP - Z9 internals in a non-grip body, competitor to Canon R5
  • Z8s - 24 MP - Z9s internals in a non-grip body, competitor to Sony A9
  • Z7 III - 60 MP - competitor to Sony A7R
  • Z6 III - 24 MP - competitor to Canon R6 and Sony A7
  • Z5c - 24 MP competitor to Sony A7c
  • plus, of course, the existing Z5, Z50, Zfc

This possibility is more a more "all things to all photographers" approach. While not out of the question, it spreads sales across a lot of bodies, which I'm not sure Nikon really wants to do right now. That approach also becomes a logistics and inventory nightmare very quickly when it gets out of hand.

I noted somewhere a suggestion that Nikon might do a repeat of the D4/Df thing: repurpose the top end sensor into a product that would sell more units and reduce their sensor R&D costs, but not cut into the sales of the flagship itself. Sure, that's yet another possibility, particularly given the initial reception to the Zfc. I'm not a fan of that approach, as it adds confusion as to what the Nikon UX actually is. And remember, the Zfc is supposed to be a casual camera that's fun. Nikon would be changing their definition of fun—which I still don't get, by the way—by making a "magic AF" camera with dials. 

Still others have suggested Nikon might instead do the D3/D700 thing (smaller body with virtually no feature/performance changes). That, too, is a possibility, and one that would generate a lot of customer smiles and a lot of sales. Just remember that the D700 was a "year after" the D3 appeared, so if Nikon goes that route, I wouldn't expect them to do it until they've vacuumed up as many Z9 sales as possible.

Plus, of course, there's the D3/D700/D300 thing: would Nikon do virtually the same thing with a DX body as they did with the flagship? It appears that Sony Semiconductor will have a stacked APS-C sensor available soon (the future X-H2 is rumored to use it), so it isn't out of the question. That could take some of the design load off and let Nikon get to a Z90 faster. Then again, Fujifilm is the only one currently rumored to be using that chip, so maybe it's a Fujifilm exclusive for some time period?

Whatever approach Nikon picks—and there are plenty of others I haven't outlined—those decisions would already have been made and development would already be in progress if we're going to see new III models in late 2022. Indeed, if new sensors are involved, I'd add the adjective "deep" before the word progress in that last sentence. For another October (2022) launch, sensor lockdown would have to occur within the next few months. Most people don't know that from saying "go" to getting a large batch of final image sensors is a multi-month process.

What all this speculation is leading to is this: I think within the next 12 months we'll know for sure whether Nikon is being (1) super aggressive, (2) modestly aggressive, (3) or less aggressive. As I wrote on bythom.com, the camera world changed with the Z9. While dpreview keeps repeating that the Z9 is the D3 moment (and Nikon then echoed that back at them, which is a Japanese thing to do), I believe the Z9 is actually the D1 moment all over again. 

Both the D1 and the D3 were aggressive launch points, with the quick followup to the D1 one—the D1h, D1x, and D100—being super aggressive because it was a complete statement of a line of DSLRs when many others had none yet. It telegraphed that Nikon was in full transition from SLR to DSLR. It could be that time again. 

I'm hoping for another super aggressive burst from Nikon, and one that now tries to leave mechanical shutters behind (the SSLR?). Before the pandemic caused all sorts of issues, Nikon executives were out and about saying that they wanted to and were prepared to move fast. All the things the virus shut down on them made it impossible to do that in the subsequent time frame, unfortunately. But that statement, coupled with the Z9 announcement and the huge commitment Nikon just revealed for new product spending at this week's financial results briefing, seems to suggest that Nikon is now prepared to mash the pedal to the floor. 

The possibilities are endless, but we'll only get one of them actually pursued ;~). 

What do I now want short term? Something like this:

  • Z9, 45mp shutterless flagship with EXPEED7
  • Z7 III, 45mp shutterless small body with EXPEED7
  • Z6 III, 24mp shutterless small body with EXPEED7 (or perhaps 33mp shuttered small body with EXPEED7)
  • Z90, 32mp shutterless DX body with EXPEED7

Those, of course, are in addition to what we already have. 

The interesting thing I've noticed post Z9 announcement is that the Internet discussion of future Nikon mirrorless cameras has moved from "iteration" to "exploration." By that I mean that most of the previous comments concerning future Nikon cameras were about a feature or performance attribute that Nikon needed to add to the existing bodies. Now I'm seeing more and more people letting their imagination run further, and thinking about what a shutterless lineup might look like, and what that would mean to them photographically. Nikon users are thinking more boldly again. It's not about "catching up to Sony," it's about "enlivening the future." 

So, once again, solid marks to Nikon this round. Make the followup as good as the starting point, and Nikon mirrorless should have a bright future.

Looking for other photographic information? Check out our other Web sites:
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