Nikon at CES: Are there any surprise announcements in store?

Watch video: What to expect from Nikon at CES 2021

While Canon, Sony and Panasonic all hosted presentations to kick off this year's CES, Nikon is instead holding court on its virtual showcase stand. 

So what will Nikon have on show at CES 2021 – and can we expect any surprise announcements to shake up the imaging world? 

It seems that the manufacturer is mostly building its CES presence around its two latest mirrorless cameras, the Nikon Z6 II and Nikon Z7 II – the newly released dynamic duo that replace the original Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z7 released back in 2018, which kicked off the full-frame mirrorless revolution (well, at least as far as Canon and Nikon are concerned).

We fully expect Nikon to use the event to spotlight its two new bodies, and drive home the benefits of the latest iteration of Z-mount technology – such as the much improved autofocus (particularly Animal AF and Eye AF), increased processing power and far greater shooting speeds and buffer depth. 

Still, despite the many improvements making the Z6 II and Z7 II much more at home when shooting even fast action, they're still not quite a match for the company's flagship sports DSLR: the Nikon D6, revealed a year ago in line with what was scheduled to be an Olympic year. 

Of course, the D6 reminds us that while Nikon doesn't always present its new cameras at CES, it sometimes surprises us with a development announcement. And with 2021 now being an Olympic year, Nikon could well surprise us again with a development announcement for the Nikon Z9 – expected to be the professional mirrorless equivalent of the D6. 

It's also possible, if not that probable, that Nikon may also reveal the Nikon Z8 – a camera that is anticipated to succeed the Nikon D850, and feature Sony's 60MP image sensor to deliver seriously high resolution imaging (and potentially, with that many pixels, even 8K video). 

With its rivals revealing some seriously impressive tech this week, we're very eager to see what Nikon has up its sleeve…

Read more: 

Best Nikon cameras
Nikon Z6 II review
Nikon Z7 II review
Nikon D6 review
Nikon D850 review