Looks Like the Nikon Z6 III is Coming Soon

My go-to site for anything Nikon-related, Nikon Rumors, just published a set of rumored specifications of the Z6III from one of his reliable sources.

The rumored specifications seem very probable (i.e. does not sound like a wishlist of fantasy specs), and are also in line of what I am speculating and expecting of the Z6 III.

Personally while I like using the high MP Z7 and Z8 for my leisure shoots since I print and they give more room for cropping, work-wise the 24MP files hit a nice good sweet spot of quality + detail + noise performance, and am really glad they are keeping to 24MP for the Z6 line.

It’s almost a given that the Expeed 7 would be in the Z6III, and the one aspect that I’m most interested in is the improvements in autofocus tracking with subject recognition active.

My main issue with the Z6 II (and the OG Z6 and Z7 for that matter) is that while subject detection is pretty reliable and the eye AF algorithms give really good hit rates with static subjects, focus accuracy takes a huge hit the moment movement is involved, especially at wide apertures - most of the pictures of subjects (well my cat) walking towards the camera end up just 1cm or so slightly back-focused.

I do not observe this when using the Z8, which shows that the Expeed 7 can definitely keep up with the calculations, coupled with the fast data stream from the stacked sensor the calculations are made in near real-time.

Though that being said, using single point AF-C the autofocus can reliably follow moving objects as long as the AF point is kept on the subject, so I do suppose the bottleneck is the Expeed 6 CPU being unable to keep up with subject detection and tracking AF simultaneously.

So now begs the question that I really want answers to - an Expeed 7 with a slightly slower non-stacked BSI sensor, how would the AF tracking abilities with subject detection be like?