Nikon just announced the Z6 III, building upon the earlier Z6 II substantially. Some of the Z6 III’s features aren’t found anywhere else in Nikon’s lineup, like the partially stacked CMOS sensor. This article breaks down the top 5 things you need to know about the Z6 III that aren’t obvious from the specs alone.
1. More About the Partially Stacked Sensor
The biggest elephant in the room is the “partially stacked” CMOS sensor found on the Nikon Z6 III. As a refresher, the only two Nikon Z cameras with a stacked sensor so far are the Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z9. Stacked sensors allow for faster readout speeds, which is why the Z8 and Z9 are able to eschew the mechanical shutter and rely on their electronic shutters alone. In theory, there can be a small noise and dynamic range penalty to stacked sensors, but the Z8 and Z9 don’t have meaningfully worse image quality than their non-stacked counterparts like the Z7 / Z7 II.
The electronic shutters on the Nikon Z8 and Z9 are so useful because their readout speed is fast – about 1/270th to 1/280th of a second (roughly 3.6 milliseconds). This negates almost all of the potential drawbacks of electronic shutters, such as rolling shutter effects with fast-moving subjects. It wouldn’t be possible without a fast sensor design like a stacked sensor.
The Nikon Z6 III’s partially stacked sensor has some of these benefits when using the electronic shutter, but not all. The flash sync speed with the electronic shutter is 1/60th of a second (it’s 1/200th second on the Z8 and Z9), which means that the readout speed of the Z6 III must be 16 milliseconds or faster. Most likely, to build in some cushion, the readout speed on the Z6 III is approximately 1/80th second or 12.5 milliseconds – I’ll update this with an exact figure once I have one.
This is much faster than the readout speed of previous Z6-series cameras. The Nikon Z6 II has approximately a 1/20th second readout speed (50 milliseconds), so the new partially stacked design represents a major improvement. The electronic shutter on the Z6 II would sometimes lead to significant rolling shutter with fast-moving action, while the Z6 III should rarely have that problem. This means that its 20 FPS electronic shutter mode is going to be genuinely useful and not a gimmick.
2. The Buffer Capacity
I’ll never know why Nikon sometimes hides buffer numbers from their official specs lists, especially for cameras like the Z6 III that has a whopper of a buffer. But Nikon does at least mention it elsewhere in their announcement of the Z6 III if you go looking.
The Nikon Z6 III has a “maximum buffer of 1000+ shots” in 20 FPS continuous high mode, including when shooting RAW. If you have a fast card (the Z6 III supports CFExpress Type B and UHS-II SD), you should have no issue photographing fast-moving action with this camera.
3. Slightly Better Pre-Release Capture
As anticipated, the Nikon Z6 III has a pre-release burst mode, where the camera can buffer images up to 1 second before you fully depress the shutter button. A similar feature is found in the Nikon Zf, Z8, and Z9.
Like those three cameras, the pre-release mode on the Nikon Z6 III is JPEG-only, which is a little disappointing; the competing Canon EOS R6 II can shoot RAW pre-burst. However, the Nikon Z6 III’s implementation of pre-release does feature an advantage over Nikon’s previous implementation. Namely, the Nikon Z6 III can reach 60 FPS at full resolution!
By comparison, the Nikon Zf’s pre-release burst maxes out at 30 FPS. The Nikon Z8 and Z9 can both shoot 60 FPS in pre-release mode, but only with 19 megapixel JPEGs from the DX area of the frame. While this can be useful for getting more reach, it harms the image quality and noise performance. With the Z6 III able to capture full-resolution 60 FPS images in this mode, it’s arguably the most useful Nikon camera yet if you find pre-release important to your work.
4. The Promising New Electronic Viewfinder
The existing implementation of Nikon’s electronic viewfinder has always impressed me – it doesn’t have the sort of flickering or delay that gives me a headache, which is more than I could say about a lot of mirrorless cameras out there. Even so, Nikon has been using the same 3.69 million dot EVF since the original Z6 and Z7, including in their Zf / Z8 / Z9 cameras. I didn’t expect that the Nikon Z6 III would be the camera to change that, but I’m pretty excited that it is.
The new EVF has a 5.76 million dot display, but that’s not the biggest improvement. Something that won’t show up in every spec sheet (though Nikon hasn’t shied away from advertising it) is that the Z6 III’s viewfinder can reach a higher brightness than any other full-frame mirrorless camera today, reaching 4000 nits (for comparison, the Z9 reaches 3000 nits). It also has an extended color gamut of DCI-P3, which is about the same size as Adobe RGB although a different shape.
Moreover, the new EVF has a refresh rate of 120 Hz! This matches the Nikon Z8 and Z9’s refresh rate; otherwise, all Nikon Z cameras so far have had a 60 FPS refresh rate. For quick panning and high-speed photography, it can be an improvement.
Viewfinder quality is one area that directly impacts the most important part of photography – composition – and the Z6 III looks like it will easily have Nikon’s best EVF yet.
5. Raw Video Beyond the Headlines
One of the headlining specifications of the Nikon Z6 III is that it can shoot 6K Raw video. And it can, but there’s more to it than that. The Z6 III can shoot Raw video in all of the following ways:
- 6K Raw at 60/50/30/25/24p
- 4032 x 2268 (4K) Raw at 60/50/30/25/24p
- 3984 x 2240 (4K) Raw at 120/60/50/30/25/24p
Everyone has been making the most noise about internal 6K/60p Raw – and for good reason – but this camera can also shoot 4K Raw video at 120 FPS! That could be just as useful, if not more so, for a lot of projects.
Nikon doesn’t state whether the 4K Raw video is cropped or not. On the Nikon Z8 and Z9, it is (about a 2.3x crop to reach the 4K area of the sensor). I’ll update this article when I learn for sure if the Z6 III’s 4K Raw functions the same way.
Conclusion
We’re still learning more about the Nikon Z6 III every minute, and I’ll update this article if any major features come to light that we didn’t know about! But it’s clear that Nikon went beyond just the specifications with the Z6 III – it has a lot of capabilities that may not be obvious at first glance, but will have significant impacts on real-world photography.
If you intend to pre-order the Nikon Z6 III, you can support Photography Life by doing so through our affiliates B&H or Adorama. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or thoughts about this new camera!