Nikon Z System News and Commentary | Thom Hogan

The Number One Question I’m Getting

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:46:17 -0400

Every year this time I get the questions about when Nikon will release their next camera (or lens). That’s because the Z-mount customer has been conditioned to expect fall releases. The over/under for camera releases by Nikon is August. In the past they’ve released six cameras in the April to July time frame, and seven in the September to November time frame (the original Z6/Z7 were announced exactly in between, in August.

The queries are a bit stronger this year, as Nikon hasn’t introduced any camera since the ZR last September, and no still-oriented camera since the Z5II in April 2025. Moreover, the Z9II is overdue, as it missed the usual four-year pro update cycle.

As I’ve been writing all year, I don’t expect Nikon’s next camera announcement until after Labor Day. And now we see a hint of that in the Nikon Q1 financials just released: “downward revision to the 1H sales plan” is a clear clue that nothing sigificant gets released in the July through September quarter (e.g. even a September announcement may not ship to customers until October). It’s not a big thing, but Nikon took out about 50,000 camera units from their fiscal year forecast, which is about what I’d expect from not shipping anything new in Q2 (July to September). Essentially, delays in new product introductions seem to be pushing volume into the next fiscal year, as lenses also saw a 50,000 unit reduction.

Will We Get Unique NIKKORs Again?

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:16:39 -0400

So here’s a question to ask yourself: what NIKKOR lens currently stands out as unique across all mounts these days?

Answer: 50mm f/0.95 NOCT.

Runner Ups: the 135mm f/1.8 Plena, 600mm f/6.3 VR S, and 800mm f/6.3 VR S.

Also considered: 28-400mm f/4-8 VR, 28-135mm f/4 PZ.

There was a time back in the film SLR and DSLR F-mount cycles when Nikon was continuous iterating truly unique lenses that no one else had: first zoom, first autofocus lens, first exotic telephotos, first 17-35mm f/2.8, first, first, first. And often times, those lenses stayed unique for a period of years.

With the Z-mount Nikon seems gone more conservative and mainstream with their NIKKOR offerings. Instead of unique focal lengths and apertures, which drives different uses, we instead have seen Nikon opt for highest possible performance at well-known focal lengths and aperture combinations that are known to sell in quantity.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about the quality of Nikon’s Z-mount offerings. With very few exceptions they’ve all turned out to be at or near best-in-class, and edge-to-edge sharpness with few other drawbacks makes for detailed, sharp, and anomaly-free images. I’m all for that.

It’s a Lensy Day in the Neighborhood, a Lensy Day...

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:16:37 -0400

Tamron today announced the 12-20mm f/2.8 lens, giving Z-mount users another option in the wide angle realm that hasn’t really filled out yet. Tamron specifically is touting the lens for astrophotography and interior photography. This is also a relatively small and light lens, a little longer and heavier than Nikon’s 14-30mm f/4, but still pretty sveldt, particularly considering the f/2.8 aperture. Along with the new lens comes new branding that drops all the Di, VXD, and other letters that used to accompany the lens name, plus a different finish. (Someone at B&H didn’t get the memo, as their banner header and intro article calls it the Di III.) At US$1799, it’s one of Tamron’s pricier lenses in the Z-mount.

This brings Tamron’s Z-mount offerings up to a even dozen. It’s nice to see that the Tamron options are still mostly designing in the cracks of Nikon’s own focal length choices, providing some real choices in the mount.

Meanwhile, Viltrox announced a 26mm f/2.8 that appears remarkably similar to Nikon’s pancake. Yes, there’s some slight difference in the optical element arrangement and charted MTFs, but the similarities are pretty much in your face, including aperture diaphragm, focusing distance, size, and even the “whole lens focus” idea (which Viltrox calls “full-group focusing system”). So which is it? Did Viltrox help Nikon produce the original, or is Viltrox basically cloning the idea? Good question.

You Can’t Make This Up

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:45:42 -0400

In a near perfect example of irony, the Japanese Intellectual Property High Court last week invalidated one of RED’s key patents.

If you’re forgotten, RED used the threat of legal action to hold off competitors from creating raw video files, claiming patent to the idea. RED sent cease and disist letters and demanded licensing fees from anyone trying to create raw video files.

Nikon was the first major player to reject RED’s patent claims and the two initially brought their disagreement to court. Nikon presented fairly clear evidence of prior work as well as obviousness in their briefs and legal arguments. However, before that case could be heard, Nikon bought RED, and Nikon had the case dismissed.

When the patent that Nikon now held was challenged again in Japan by Panasonic, Nikon reversed position and argued to validate the claims of the (original RED) patent. The Intellectual Property High Court in Japan has now rejected the patent claim, and deemed it invalid.

Site Updating

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 10:25:34 -0400

I’m (almost) back on a regular schedule again, and that means using the summer slow times to go back and work through editing (and sometimes rewriting) sections of the site. This week I’ve been concentrating on the Lenses section. Here are some of the things to look for:

Updated the use of the word NIKKOR, making it all caps to conform with Nikon’s trademark standards.
Added recent lenses to the ratings charts, even if they haven’t been reviewed yet.
Updated the Best Telephoto Options, Second Safari Lenses, and Rational DX articles to match current thoughts.
Changed quite a bit of wording throughout the section to make it more clear and obvious what I’m saying.

Nikon Out of Sync With Itself

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 07:57:48 -0400

Here we go again.

The latest Nikon camera firmware release (version 1.10 for the Nikon Z50II) has renamed things. This time, it’s “Cloud Picture Control” being renamed to “Imaging Recipe.” Apparently someone at Nikon finally noticed that their naming conventions across their products don’t match. For what it’s worth, both Nikon’s names here are wrong from a sound product marketing management viewpoint. It should be Picture Control Basic, Picture Control Creative, and Picture Control Recipe, not Picture Control, Creative Picture Control, and Imaging Recipe.

The out of sync problem? Well, other Nikon cameras now need a firmware update to update the wording to match.

This is the problem that happens when you rush things and don’t have all parts of the company talking (and agreeing) with one another. From the user perspective, names that are different and keep changing cause cognitive dissonance and confusion about what is what. When you put that naming confusion on top of the unique and strange UI necessary to even connect your camera to Nikon Imaging Cloud (where Recipes mostly come from), you almost certainly get fewer users adapting something you went to great lengths to create. Moreover, that something here (Recipes and Nikon Imaging Cloud) are both unique and useful additions that are getting ignored by most of the Z9-generation users (and if you’re a Z9 user, you’re just SOOL).

It’s (Finally) ZR Time

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 13:32:04 -0400

Trips, commitments, and some family issues I had to deal with made it so that I didn’t quite get to my full Nikon ZR coverage very quickly. Usually I have a review and book ready within a couple of months after a new camera is introduced, but this time I lagged. My apologies, but I have a present for those of you who waited.

Nikon emphasizes the ZR as a video camera. Virtually nothing in their marketing materials even talks about possibly using it for still photography. Yet at its core, the ZR is just as good and (mostly) as customizable the very customizable Z6III. A number of people actually photograph via the Rear LCD these days, and prefer it, so I don’t understand Nikon’s lack of still marketing for the ZR.

Hey, I know marketing, maybe I should step in ;~).

But first, let’s deal with the camera fully. My review of the Nikon ZR is now published, and it’s a long screed, even without example images yet. If you’re the type that just wants the bottom line, the ZR is recommended, but conditionally. If you’re doing grab and go video, I’d say there’s no condition (unless you absolutely require 8K instead of 6K). For stills it gets a little trickier, as there is no viewfinder option, so you really have to be ready to compose via the Rear LCD. The good news is that Rear LCD is the best, by far, Nikon has put on a camera. You can definitely use it for still photography, but that works a little differently than with the DSLR-like cameras, and some won’t like that.

The State of the DX Lens Set

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 10:35:13 -0400

With today’s introduction of the (resurrected) Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8, it’s probably a good time to re-examine the state of lenses for DX. From the early days of great paucity we’re now in a far better situation, with 53 DX lenses now available.

Let’s start with the zooms (bold-faced entries have been reviewed on this site and the links lead to the review, not the specifications):

NIKKOR 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR
NIKKOR 16-50mm f/2.8 VR
NIKKOR 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR (kit lens)
Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 VC
NIKKOR 18-140mm f/3.5-6.3 VR
Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 VC
NIKKOR 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR (second kit lens)

We now have 12mm to 300mm (18-450mm full frame equivalent) covered with seven zooms, though it would be nice to get a few more wider options. I tend to point people to the 12-28mm and 16-50mm for basic coverage, and then if they need real telephoto dip into the excellent full frame telephoto options that are available.

Now on to the autofocus primes:

That’s 46 prime lenses from 9mm to 90mm (14-135mm full frame equivalent), though I’m sure I haven’t caught up with the Chinese onslaught yet, plus several seem to re-badges between brands. I have over a dozen of these lenses in my studio, and all of them are competent, some of them excellent (more reviews coming soon).

The Nikon Zf eBook Has Been Updated

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 11:01:53 -0400

Configuring and Using the Nikon Zf has just had a complete revision, bringing it up to the same level as firmware 3.01 on the camera. Rewording, clarifications, additions, and more have occurred. The PDF version is now in color.

If you own a previous version of this book, please check your Junk/Spam folder for an automated message from my server, which contains your update link. If you haven’t received that by July 1st, let me know and I’ll refresh your links manually.

What’s Nikon’s Future Z Lineup?

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:33:07 -0400

In the past week I’ve touched on Nikon’s medium-term plans as well as what’s happening generally in the camera industry. The question I'm now getting even more than usual is “what’s Nikon’s future camera plans?”

Anticipating new Nikon products is always a risky business. While Nikon has a very specific engineering strategy and tactics that repeats, predicting the exact what and when is tough to get right.

Here’s what I believe based upon my sources at the moment:

The next Z System camera is almost certainly the Z30 iteration (call it the Z30II). Because of the RED acquisition and subsequent ZR design, there’s potential that this iteration turns out a little different than we might normally expect, as it could end up a ZR Junior. I expect this to be an anouncement sometime this summer or early fall.
The most important upcoming Z System camera is the Z9II. I’m still hearing “end-of-year, start-of-next year” as the current target announce date, and this is delayed from the original schedule for reasons currently unknown, but almost certainly involving either the EXPEED or image sensor re-design (the most common thing I hear from sources is that Nikon didn’t quite hit their original global shutter goal and backed off to just a faster electronic shutter). The reason this camera is important is that it will establish the next generation of features and performance available in the Z System. And that’s a gating element for a number of other future products, unfortunately (e.g. any eventual Z5, Z6, or Z8 update).
Beyond that, it gets very murky. I’m aware of several different ideas Nikon has considered and even prototyped, but none of those have gotten official approval that I know of. From the user base the two greatest demands currently are “Z7 iteration” and “higher-end DX.” Both those potential cameras interact with other products in the lineup, so that requires more top management buy in and that would have occurred during the top management discussions that occur with Nikon’s just ended fiscal year end. In other words, it might only be about now that additional models got green-lighted.

That said, Nikon repeats patterns. The one pattern I think we’d all like to see is a repeat of the D3/D300, D5/D500 parallel launch. Indeed, it would be the one thing I’d be strongly pursuing if I were in charge of Nikon’s product management. Ironically, the delay in the Z9II is what actually allows Nikon to consider another such parallel launch, as that would allow them to put EXPEED8 into a Z90 and sell it for the US$2500+ price point it’d likely need to be at.

A dual FX/DX launch would give Nikon the quick re-use of EXPEED8 to keeps costs down, but it introduces a new problem: what’s the DX image sensor that goes with that? It would almost certainly have to be a variant of the Sony Semiconductor 26mp stacked sensor, which then puts that Z90 in the dreaded “only use of an image sensor” category and increases costs.

Nikon’s Mid-Range Plan (to 2030)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 03:28:05 -0400

As part of their year-end financial wrap ups, Nikon has now published a new mid-range plan. In launching the new plan Nikon was brutal about how they did on their previous mid-range plan (2022-2025): they “exceeded plan” for two years but “substantially underperformed” for the last two years. Further: “Insufficient strengthening of competitiveness failed to deliver stable and expanding profitability."

That’s pretty evident from this graph:

Factors that impacted the Imaging group during that previous plan were strength in mirrorless cameras, the camera market expansion, plus a weak yen. But in the last year tariffs and soaring parts costs have cut into the group’s profits. However, let’s be clear: during the past mid-range plan Imaging was the only group within Nikon that showed a profit; all other groups show cumulative losses during the 2022-2025 period.

So what’s the new plan moving forward? Short answer: 25% revenue growth in Imaging by 2030. Longer answer: Nikon wants to use cash generated by the Imaging, Healthcare, and Industry groups to generate growth in Precision and Digital Manufacturing. The extra cash in Imaging will come from younger and upgrading users, plus cinema cameras and lenses.

NX MobileAir Is Going Free

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:04:36 -0400

Well, not today, but a month from today, when version 1.6 launches on July 9th.

Since it first appeared, I’ve complained to NPS about the US$3.99 a month charge for using NX MobileAir with multiple albums and more than 999 files. This was a bit like charging your best customers for taking images. At events and sporting events it was easy to exceed the “free” limit, and the lack of multiple albums meant you couldn’t organize your session, such as separating images out by quarter or half.

Nikon quietly sent out a notice on June 3rd within the NX MobileAir app warning users about an issue if they weren’t updated to version 1.5 before the subscription mechanism shut down on June 9th. (Essentially, if you weren’t updated to 1.5 by June 9th, you’d either not be able to update to version 1.6 when it comes or lose all your on-mobile-device data.)

NX MobileAir has had and continues to have a range of Someone Not Paying Attention issues that make it far less useful than it could be. NX MobileAir should have the Show credits and Add hashtag capabilities that SnapBridge does (though we'd need user-editable hashtags). The iOS version still doesn’t have the save/load camera settings capability the Android version does. Many of the features, such as using NX MobileAir as a remote, only work on one (or few) cameras. Ironically NX MobileAir doesn’t support either Nikon Image Space or Nikon Imaging Cloud.

Nikon Continues Bug Fixing

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:10:51 -0400

Two small firmware updates have appeared in the past week, each fixing one known bug in the product:

Zfc version 1.81
70-200mm f/2.8 VR S II version 1.10

As usual, I’ve updated the specifications pages and the overall Nikon software page.

Quick Comments About Recent Lenses

Sat, 30 May 2026 11:17:12 -0400

I’m well behind on publishing full lens reviews at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been using those new lenses. Here are some brief comments about lenses that have reviews in progress:

Nikon 16-50mm f/2.8 VR DX — Surprisingly not “sharper” than the kit lens wide open, but that’s at f/2.8 and f/2.8 instead of f/3.5 and f/5.6. Stop down, and yes, you’ll see a benefit. Use the kit lens for small, light kits, use this new mid-range zoom for a really solid DX workhorse. It’s on my Z50II a lot, and it’s not yet let me down.
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 S II — What was wrong with the original? Not much, though the LED display was all gimmick and no usefulness. What’s better with the new version? Really small things, like less focus noise while doing it faster. The new lens is clearly better, but most folk would be well-served by the original. I don’t see the II version as a lens you upgrade to from the original, but if you’re looking for arguably the best 24-70mm f/2.8 on the market, then you’ll find it here.
Nikon 35mm f/1.4 — Not my favorite focal length, so I haven’t been using it as much as some of the others. I was surprised to find how close to the 35mm f/1.8 S this lens is (at f/1.8). At this point, I’d tend to say which one you pick is a tossup, as each has some slight advantages as well as slight disadvantages versus the other. That wasn’t what I was expecting, so I need to look into that some more before publishing my final review.
Nikon 35mm f/1.7 DX — This muffin sized lens is probably bigger than you’d think it should be, but it’s also near macro (at 1:2). That makes it a pretty versatile “normal” lens to put on a DX body, and I’ve been impressed with it in that respect. But remember, you won’t have VR, so watch your shutter speeds and handle your camera carefully.
Nikon 58mm f/0.95 NOCT — I need to borrow this lens one more time to take some sample images, but this is probably the most well-corrected lens I’ve ever seen, particularly as you get to “real apertures” such as f/1.4 and smaller. It’s tricky nailing the focus point at f/0.95, since you’re doing that manually and there’s virtually no depth of field, so I suggest you set a black and white Picture Control and have Focus Peaking turned on.

Nikon’s mostly been hitting way more than singles each time they come up to bat with a new lens. A couple have been clear triples off the fence, one has been a grand slam, while the others are still all putting you into scoring position. Don’t be afraid of any Z-NIKKOR. Nikon’s upped their game in the mirrorless era, and I’m digging it.

Meanwhile, I’ve got quite a few third-party lenses in the queue, including:

Tamron 35-100mm f/2.8 — I’m not giving up my Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 for this new, smaller lens, as I have better background choices maxing out the aperture of the bigger lens. That said, I’m not unpleased with the 35-100mm; assuming you keep subjects out of the extreme corners, you’re going to find it remarkably useful and versatile as a portrait lens that’s easy to carry.
Tamron 150-500mm f/5-6.7 VC — I like it. A lot. Probably more than I do the Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6, even though I’m at a smaller aperture at every equivalent focal length with the Tamron. It’s a bigger and heavier lens than you might expect from the other Tamron telephoto zooms, and I find it too front-heavy on a Z50II, so make sure that you’re comfortable with how it handles. But optically, it does quite well.

Tamron, like Nikon, is hitting better than singles, though they really haven’t hit a three- or four-bagger yet. Given the relatively modest pricing in the Tamron lineup, solid lenses like the above almost make it into the “bargain” category.

“Color"

Fri, 29 May 2026 08:22:59 -0400

Two color-related things came up during my just completed workshop in Botswana and South Africa.

Let’s start with the easy one. If you’re having difficulty with specific colors in the Adobe products, there are two things to do:

Get out of Adobe Color. If you want to see something eye-opening, in Lightroom or ACR toggle between a Profile [sic] of Adobe Color and Camera Matching Neutral. You’ll see clear changes in greens and in contrast, probably more. Adobe’s default “color model” of the world is quite different than the real world. It’s unclear to me as to why, but Adobe Color won’t tend to reproduce color or dynamic range the way it actually was captured. For Nikon Z System cameras, I strongly recommend that you reset the default for each of your cameras to (change of wording Adobe, thus my earlier [sic]!) Preset “[camera] Neutral”. This is done in the Defaults section of the ACR preferences, or in Preferences > Presets in Lightroom.
Make sure your white balance is correct. You can’t trust As Shot in Adobe products, as they interpret Nikon’s encrypted white balance information differently than does Nikon. If you have a neutral item (white, grey, black) in your scene, try using the eyedropper on that and I’ll bet that the white balance changes. Hmm, neutral wasn’t neutral.

Here’s the thing: when you’re changing colors in an image—whether that be by hue, saturation, or luminosity—if you start with a wrong color you find that your options don’t necessarily work out for what you want to do next. One person was having issues with the greens in Botswana this year. It turned out that this was mostly due to starting with a wrong white balance. This was essentially “clipping” what he could do with some sliders downstream.

Why would that be? Remember that white balance swings the red and blue channels around the green channel to get proper color. If that swing isn’t correct, it may limit what you can do with all colors as you start moving sliders. Moreover, the underlying calculation engine that Adobe uses to make all changes essentially instant is a long way from fully accurate 32-bit floating point math. I’ve found that in extreme situations it is very easy to get to what I’d guess are boundary conditions with sliders (underwater Sony images in ACR are notorious for that).

What Needs to Change in EXPEED?

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 11:00:55 -0400

The Z9II was delayed. It’s unclear whether the delay is due to a new image sensor or a new EXPEED chip, but I thought I’d take a moment to explain what needs to be addressed with EXPEED.

Short version: processing pipeline bandwidth.

If you’re at all familiar with the progression of semiconductors, you know that each completely new generation is still following Moore’s law, which means transistors get smaller (smaller process size). Smaller can mean more, faster, or lower power. Engineers have to make a choice about how much of each benefit they choose. Once Apple got to some guaranteed battery charge level on their devices, they started balancing their Apple Silicon changes due process size reduction more towards faster, for instance.

EXPEED7 was a large step downward in process size from EXPEED6. A very dramatic change as it turns out, and most of that appears to have been gone towards faster. Much of the Z9 generation benefits derived from that.

However, it’s important to understand the internal structure of EXPEED, much like it is to understand how Apple Silicon’s internal structure is enabling things you don’t see on the Windows side yet.

Slow News Is No News

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 03:04:26 -0400

Not a lot happening in Z-Land at the moment. I had hoped for a small morsel at NAB Show, but all we got was a brief video teaser about something Nikon had already teased (NIKKOR Z Cinema lenses are coming…). The next camera—I believe that is the Z30II—is still some ways off with a likely late summer, early fall launch. My impression is that the next introduction will be a lens, but I’m not sure which one that will be, let alone when.

Sure, the leisurely parade of Chinese lenses for the Z-mount continues. The two Viltrox EVO lenses launched at NAB Show being the latest, but every week brings another. Plus NikonUSA’s getting tariff money they spent back, so that might provoke some new instant rebates that we weren’t expecting. However, while the pollen is flying about, the camera industry currently is not, it remains on a ground stop.

I don’t see the situation getting better soon. In fact, with the Iran conflict still constipating the Hormuz, things almost certainly will get worse. Oil, helium, and other resources coming out of the Middle East may be at the bottom of the product food chain, but every entity between them and the tech companies is starting to go hungry. It seems like supply chain issues are now a chronic problem, not a one-time thing.

The Big Reader Question

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:36:51 -0400

Since I’m writing about lenses this week, let me address the lens question that keeps coming up over and over:

"I’ve read all your reviews and writing about the various Z-mount telephoto options, and I just don’t know how to choose. Can you help?"

Wait, what? You read everything I wrote and you didn’t come to a conclusion, and now you want me to make a conclusion for you? Yeah, that’ll work…

Seriously, here’s the thing that everyone gets hung up on: not knowing what they’re going to photograph. If you know what you’re photographing, you should know what focal length you need, and then you simply pick the least expensive lens (because that’s all you can afford) or the best performing lens (because you want optimal results).

Sports photographers know this, for sure. Every sport that we pros photograph has a different lens focal length requirement to get top notch photos to deliver to your client. We all have our basketball/ice hockey lenses, our football lenses, our soccer/lacrosse lenses, and others for each sport we cover.

Nikon Adds Ambassadors (Updated)

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:23:22 -0400

Nikon today added two new Ambassadors to the previous 35: Tina Sokolovska and Brandon Woelful.

On Nikon's Ambassador Page, you can discover more about all 37 Ambassadors. However, I thought it might be interesting to see how Nikon categorizes each Ambassador (each Ambassador may list more than one specialty). What you get when you compile that information is the following:

17 Portrait
7 Wedding
5 Photojournalist
4 each of Filmmakers and Wildlife
3 Fashion
2 each of Artist, Commercial, Director, Documentary, Educator, Event, Sports, Travel
and only one each of Action, Adventure, Aviation, Beauty, Boudoir, Celebrity, Fine Art, Landscape, Lifestyle, Lighting, Live Performance, Macro, Nature, Video

I guess my question is this: does that "balance" accurately reflect who Nikon is selling cameras to?

Importantly there's this Nikon line: "[The Ambassadors] communicate the needs of working pros to Nikon [and] provide valuable insights about the direction of the imaging industry." Over half the categories Nikon lists are slanted to the Portrait/Event type of photography you'd find at WPPI. I'm thinking that Landscape and Travel seem underrepresented. Though there are indeed fewer professionals making money off those two categories than the others, those buying Nikon cameras are likely doing more of these kinds of work than is represented by the Ambassadors.

More Firmware Updates (Updated)

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:45:32 -0400

This week Nikon introduced Zf firmware version 3.01, Z9 firmware version 5.32, and Nikon Z50II version 1.04. All are small bug fix updates, and each fixes two small issues (only one is the same on both updates).

Update: the 24-50mm f/4-6.3 also got a small firmware fix, and now is on version 1.02.