A little over a year ago, I dropped upwards of AU$5,300 on my Nikon Z8 – a few months later in June, Nikon announced the Z6 III and left me wondering if I should have just waited and saved myself a whole wad o' cash. And that's because the third-generation Z6 comes with a long list of upgrades that make it one heck of a camera, one that keeps up with my Z8.
It's so good that we gave it a full five stars in our Nikon Z6 III review and it's been our pick of the best mirrorless camera since its release.
That long list of upgrades, though, comes at a premium price, especially when you consider that the Nikon Z6 II can now be had for half the RRP of its successor. Despite the price disparity, I still think the Mark III is a much better buy if you want a brand new full-frame mirrorless camera, especially when you can score a decent 18% discount on Amazon right now. That will save you AU$800, which you can put towards a lens, as this offer is for the body only. From what I can tell, no other camera retailer is coming close to this price, although Georges Cameras is price matching Amazon at the time of writing.
Admittedly the 24.5MP sensor resolution might put some people off – sometimes more pixels might be worth a higher investment – but given what the Z6 III can do with that lower-res sensor, I'd say the pixel count is superfluous.
It more than makes up for that in other ways, like its better speed. The partially stacked sensor is the first for Nikon and, while it can't match the sensor on the mighty Z8 and Z9, it is 3.5x faster than the one on the Z6 II. Not only can it rattle off up to 120fps in burst mode when shooting in the DX APS-C crop mode, it delivers up to 60fps using the full sensor. And you won't need to worry about buffer memory, as long as your chosen card can keep up.
It has the same autofocus speed and performance as the mighty Z8 and Z9, although the array of subjects is narrower, but that in no way impedes it from finding a subject and tracking it effectively.
According to TechRadar's Cameras channel editor, Timothy Coleman, the EVF on the Z6 III is the "best" he's seen on "any Nikon camera". I'm going to take his word for it as he's been a long-time Nikon user, while the Nikon Z8 is my first after switching from being a decades-long Canon girl, so I have no basis of comparison. It's high praise indeed.
Did I mention it has better image stabilisation as well? Up to 8 stops of compensation for camera shake, a huge improvement over the Mark II. And let's not forget the video performance too, which makes the Z6 III a fabulous hybrid camera.
Surely all these upgrades are worth the high price? But take advantage of the Amazon discount and it will prove to be a worthy camera on day one.
You might also like...
- Nikon Z6 III vs Nikon Z6 II: is the newer camera worth the upgrade?
- Need a professional level camera? Check out our in-depth Nikon Z9 review
- If you don't need a full-frame camera, take a look at our Nikon Z50 II vs Z50 guide
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