While the two cameras look almost identical physically, most of the improvements to the Z6 II come via hardware and firmware updates. First, the new Z6 II now comes with dual EXPEED 6 processors that improve many aspects of the camera, including its buffer, autofocus and burst speed. The Nikon Z6 II is capable of shooting up to 14 FPS vs 12 FPS on the Z6, but that's a small change from the buffer, which has grown significantly. When shooting in 12-bit lossless compressed RAW, the Z6 II is capable of shooting up to 124 frames, roughly 3.5x more than the Z6 is capable of. This means that at 14 FPS continuous shooting, you should be able to shoot for almost 9 seconds before the buffer fills up - a huge difference considering the Z6 slows down to just 3 seconds.
Tested Features of Z6 MARK II
- slow-mo
- 4k video
- iso
- grains
- color tone
- W.B
- picture style
- blur
- bokeh
- low light
- picture quality
- touch screen
- auto light optimization
- burst shoot
- autofocus
- Sharpness
- iso range: 10\10
- color tone: 9\10
- white balance: 9\10
- background blur: 10\10
- bokeh effect: 10\10
- grains coverage: 10\10
- highlights & shadows detail: 10\10
- autofocus: 10\10
- jpeg quality: 9\10
- continuous shooting speed: 10\10
- depth of field: 10\10
- live view photography: 9\10
- eye tracking: 10\10
- flashlight photography: 10\10
- HDR mode: 10\10
- Touch Screen Focus: 9\10
- sharpness: 10\10
- image stabilization: 9\10
- Announcement Date: 2020-10-14
- 25MP - Full-frame BSI-CMOS Sensor
- ISO 100 - 51200 ( expands to 50 - 204800)
- Nikon Z Mount
- Sensor-shift Image Stabilization
- 3.20" Tilting Screen
- 3690k dot Electronic viewfinder
- 14.0fps continuous shooting
- 4K (UHD) - 3840 x 2160 video resolution
- Built-in Wireless
- 705g. 134 x 101 x 70 mm
- Weather Sealed Body
Z6 MARK II features a rating in Photography
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Key features of Z6 MARK II
Second, the autofocus system has been improved quite a bit. The Nikon Z6 II has a low-light sensitivity range of -4.5 to 19 EV, which is one stop better than what the Z6 can do. This will make the Z6 II focus more accurately in very dark conditions. In addition, the Z6 II gains two new AF functions - the ability to perform autofocus on the eyes in Wide Area AF mode, as well as when shooting videos.
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The Nikon Z6 II is now capable of shooting 4K at up to 60 FPS, though limited to 1.5x crop (1080p and lower resolutions remain unchanged). It's also capable of HLG and HDR output via the HDMI port, which the Z6 can't do.
Those who heavily criticized the original Nikon Z6 for its single memory card slot can now breathe a sigh of relief – the new Nikon Z6 II comes with two memory card slots. The first slot is capable of accommodating both CFexpress and XQD memory cards, while the second slot accommodates UHS-I and UHS-II compatible SD memory cards. As with all other high-end Nikon cameras, you can use the two media types for different purposes – you can set the cards to overflow, backup or save RAW files to one while saving JPEGs to the other card slot.
