This site reviewed the Nikon Coolpix A camera in 2013. It boasted great image quality and a reassuring build. And Nikon hasn’t really returned to the world of compact cameras in years. Honestly, it also doesn’t even seem like they want to do it either. And if they really choose to not step into this space, I think that they’d be hurting themselves so much. They could even just make a smaller Nikon Zf C of some sort and give it a pancake fixed lens!
Of any of the brands that would never bring a compact camera to market, I’d probably say Nikon would be at the top of that list. Ever since the Nikon DL series of cameras never came to market, it seems the brand just hasn’t done the work on itself to recover. It’s almost as if they need to go to therapy to realize that they need to give it another try again.
I’m not going to say that Nikon should do this just to get into the market and because everyone else is doing it. However, they do surely sometimes feel like that’s how they launch products. But instead, I think that Nikon could make more cameras meant for photographers instead of content creators. There’s a need and want to cameras with more of a zoom range that shoot stills, not videos.
This is the thing: I think that Nikon would really need to do and make something different that doesn’t feel like they’re just copying Fujifilm, Canon, or Sony at this point. To do that, they’d need to lean into either making more superzoom cameras or something that’s very premium. But I don’t think that Nikon would do any of those.
What I think Nikon could do perhaps better than any other camera maker is a camera with either a 24MP full-frame sensor or a 45MP full-frame sensor that has the single best high ISO output that we’ve seen. They did it with the Nikon Zf and this is something that the market would really want. On top of that, it could also go down to a very low ISO of some sort. Essentially, if you give it an insane ISO range, Nikon could compete in the space.
But would they actually do it?
I hope so. But I doubt it.