Does This Social Media Post Hint at a 67-Megapixel Nikon Camera?
News | By Stephan Jukic | September 1, 2022
A set of photos published on the Chinese social media site Weibo by Nikon China for an upcoming brand event include one image with a resolution of 67 megapixels. This isn’t incredible by itself, except that no Nikon camera in the company’s existing lineup offers that resolution.
The website Nikon Rumors first spotted the Weibo post, which revolves around an upcoming Nikon Creative Camp LIVE stream class that’s going to run on September 10 and September 24. It was the last photo in the selection of four posted by Nikon that caught someone’s eye due to its uploaded resolution of 6,670 x 10,000 pixels, or 67MP.
While this doesn’t necessarily mean anything about the specs of any upcoming Nikon camera, Nikon Rumors notes that Nikon has no cameras with a 67MP sensor on the market. This leaves a couple of options: Either the photo was taken with a wholly new camera that isn’t yet available, as a sort of subtle pre-release tease for attentive watchers about what’s coming, or the photo was taken by a non-Nikon camera.
The second possibility would be amusing since the photos themselves supposedly showcase the kind of quality images that photographers can deliver with Nikon technology.
As Nikon Rumors notes, reverse image searches for the photo don’t bring up any other results, so it doesn’t seem to be a stock photo bought by Nikon for publicity use.
Another site, DPReview, notes that the image’s metadata only reveals its color profile, resolution and file size, but no source, meaning that the photo’s EXIF data was removed before its Weibo upload. It is of course also possible that the photo was originally taken at a lower resolution and then upscaled to 67MP, though this doesn’t seem likely.
In this Google-translated screenshot of part of the original post, the controversial photo is the one on the far right, with the bottle caps.
All of these curious details loosely point towards a standing rumor about an upcoming Nikon “Z8” mirrorless camera that is supposedly going to be announced at some point in 2022. Nikon’s current flagship camera model, the Z9, has a maximum photo resolution of 45.7MP.
There are also rumors floating around about a slightly lighter version of the Z9 being released. This camera is supposed to have the same specs as the existing Z9 but without a built-in vertical grip. This however is also unsubstantiated.
If either of these two alleged camera models already exists as a pre-release model and is responsible for the Weibo photo, it might have the largest CMOS sensor resolution on the market, beating Sony’s Alpha 7R IV and its 61MP sensor.
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Stephan Jukic is a technology and photography journalist and experimental photographer who spends his time living in both Canada and Mexico. He loves cross-cultural street photo exploration and creating fine art photo compositions.
