Nikon Japan has added the D6 flagship DSLR to its official list of discontinued products, marking the end of an illustrious 26-year chapter for Nikon.
As Nikon Rumors reports, the D6 is officially discontinued in Japan. This means that as far as Nikon HQ is concerned, the camera has run its course and no more will be made. However, for now, photographers can still get their hands on a brand-new D6. For example, it is still in stock at B&H and through Nikon USA’s official store. However, once stock runs dry, that’s it, and new models will be gone forever, leaving DSLR-loving photographers to the used market.
Nikon announced the development of the D6 DSLR in September 2019 and officially released it a few months later, in February. The camera promises Nikon’s most powerful autofocus system ever, a claim that would last until the Z9 was unveiled in October 2021. While the D6 was, for a short spell, Nikon’s best professional camera, it nonetheless arrived as Nikon shifted its development efforts toward mirrorless cameras.
As Allen Murabayashi wrote for PetaPixel the week the D6 was fully revealed, “The Nikon D6 is a pro camera for a vanishingly small demographic.” John McMurtrie wrote on PetaPixel the following day that the Nikon D6 “falls short.”
These criticisms, that the D6 felt out of place in 2020 and that it was not quite up to snuff compared to its contemporary mirrorless competition, grew more pointed with time. As soon as the Nikon Z9 hit the scene — much more of a groundbreaking camera than the D6 was — the D6’s time felt significantly more limited.
Perhaps it is impressive then that the Nikon D6 made it until May 2025. Despite being a bit of a stopgap camera, something Nikon-equipped pros could use to shoot the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (which happened in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic), Nikon’s overall legacy of DSLR cameras remains an extremely impressive one. Although the Nikon D6 is an anticlimactic conclusion to an incredible series of flagship DSLR cameras, its lineage is impressive.
A couple of highlights include 1999’s Nikon D1, which sported a 2.7-megapixel APS-C CCD image sensor, was a significant milestone in the history of digital photography. Eight years later, the Nikon D3, perhaps the most influential Nikon DSLR of them all, ushered in the era of full-frame photography for Nikon.
The echoes of Nikon’s final flagship DSLR camera, the D6, are heard in the overall design and functionality of the Nikon Z9, one of the cameras that saved Nikon’s fortunes after it stumbled out of the gates in the mirrorless age. That may be the D6’s lasting legacy: how it paved the way for the Nikon Z9 and, by extension, the Z8.
Image credits: Nikon
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