Nikon’s latest Z6 camera brings the camera maker’s top-of-the-line autofocus to a more affordable flagship camera. In almost every way that matters, the new Z6 III matches or outperforms the company’s much pricier, top-end Nikon Z8. Although not perfect, the Z6 III is one of the best full-frame mirrorless cameras on the market, and it is capable of handling almost any photographic situation that most of us will encounter. Landscape and wildlife pros will probably stick with the Z8s for its higher resolution sensor, but for everyone else, this is the Nikon to get. Leaping ForwardNikon’s new Z6 III is a big upgrade from the previous version to the original. It brings most of the flagship features of Nikon’s far more expensive Z8 and Z9 to the Z6 line.Photograph: Scott Gilbertson The design of the body has been tweaked, although it is not significantly different from the Z6 II. The camera weighs 1.7 kilograms, which balances well even with larger lenses, and the Nikon grip is the largest I’ve used, making it comfortable and easy to carry. Unlike the retro-inspired Nikon Zf, there are no external controls here. There’s a button to change the shooting mode, along with several other dials, buttons, and scroll wheels, all of which give you a lot of customizable options that you can set to your liking, but it lacks the film-inspired feel of the Zf. The flagship feature of the Z6 III new, partially compared sensor (more below), updated, fast and accurate 3D subject-tracking system, and ProRes encoding for video. There are also some small updates that make the daily shooting experience better and smoother. The Z6 III has a new 24-megapixel CMOS sensor, which Nikon calls a “partially stacked” sensor, which means you get some of the performance benefits of a CMOS sensor compared to the ones found in the Nikon Z8 and Z9, but no downsides, or at least less of the downsides. Compared to the sensor, ahem, the processing circuit stack is right on top of the sensor itself (technically behind the sensor), which means that the RAM is directly connected to the sensor, making reading incredibly fast. This is what allows high-end cameras to shoot up to 12 RAW images per second without the viewfinder going off. Photo: Scott Gilbertson
