DSLRBodies

This chart [sources: CIPA/Nikkei/TSR] says about all that needs to be said:

The blue bars are the overall DSLR shipment volumeand the blue line the moving average). The red bars are Canon’s DSLR shipments, the yellow bars are Nikon’s DSLR shipments. 

The telling story is that Nikon’s total DSLR volume in 2024 for all models was about one tenth their overall mirrorless (Z System) volume. In other words, the four remaining Nikon DSLR cameras together sold less than the average Z System camera.

None of the remaining DSLR cameras are in a dedicated full time production line in the Thailand plant; they’re all now assembled in small batches in the exception lane. The good news is that there is parts sharing between DSLR and mirrorless in the remaining four Nikon DSLRs. However, the DSLRs are all EXPEED5/6, and the mirrorless line recently has been all EXPEED7, so the parts reuse benefits are slowly eroding. 

Meanwhile, Nikon’s F-mount lens lineup keeps getting trimmed. Nikon Japan now only lists 40 F-mount lenses as current, and we now regularly hear about an F-mount lens going out of production. (Note: going out of production doesn’t mean going off sale. It appears that Nikon is tolerating some inventory build-up before discontinuing production of lenses. Thus demand will determine exactly when a lens is no longer available new, and there will be some regional variability for that.)

The way to look at things is this: Nikon is clearly supporting DSLR holdouts (and replacements) with a core set of cameras while reducing their commitment to continuing DSLR lens production. However, they’re also not doing any further DSLR and DSLR lens development. We’re in a similar transition period now with DSLRs as we were with film SLRs beginning in 2005. Eventually, the DSLR volumes will be low enough that camera production will be halted. Some lens production is likely to continue much longer, however. 

I expect that Nikon will use the holiday 2025 period to move DSLRs, and if successful at that, we may end up with only one or two Nikon DSLRs still sold sometime in 2026.

Those of you still using DSLRs need to be comfortable with the products currently offered, and using the sales and gluts of used inventory to pick up anything you might still need.

Production of Nikon DSLRs is slowly continuing to drop away. I'm told that the D6 is now currently out of regular production*. With the tariff situation placing new challenges on the camera companies, it looks like Nikon has started weeding out their product line more aggressively to just those that they want to sell in the future. Unfortunately, that doesn't include DSLRs.

As best as I can tell, here is the current state of Nikon DSLRs with the new rebate program in place:

• D7500 — When it came out in 2017 the original list price was US$1250. The current list price is US$1000, and there's a US$300 rebate now in effect for the camera, making it US$700. As the only DX DSLR still on the market, the D7500 is slowly being eroded by the discontinuation of DX F-mount lenses. NikonUSA is down to listing only 16 such lenses, but B&H's stock is now down to 11 (plus a few refurbished and gray market ones). I'd guess this is the last few months for F-mount DX from Nikon.
• D780 — At introduction in 2020 the D780 was a relatively expensive US$2300. That price was probably to protect the Z6 sales that Nikon really wanted to make. In Nikon's view, since the D780 had the Z6 features in Live View, the D780 was a higher performing model. Unfortunately the D780 never really sold well, despite being a very well-rounded camera. The current list price is US$2000, but with instant rebate you can get one for US$1400. That still seems a bit high considering the Z5II and all it offers. However, the fact that Nikon is being aggressive with pricing on this model means that the demand still isn't there for this camera, and it's just a matter of time before it, too, hits the final clearance bin. One slight advantage the D780 has is that it uses EXPEED6, which is still a current chip across some of Nikon's lineup.
• D850 — Another 2017 offering was the D850 at US$3300. I'll just put the stake in the ground: the D850 was (and is) the best all-around DSLR ever made. The current list price of US$2400 is interesting, as it sits between the current Z7II (US$2000) and Z8 (US$$3700) pricing, but much closer to that of the Z7II. But Nikon just dropped that to US$1800, meaning that it's likely the D850 is on its very last legs. Many would also claim the D850 is a better camera than the Z7II, though you'd be hard pressed to find someone that thinks it's better than the Z8. The problem with the D850 is that it, like the D7500, uses EXPEED5; given the current rebates, it's likely that the D850 goes away soon.
• D6 — The most recent of Nikon's DSLRs (2019 and EXPEED6) is the only still-available model that appears to have already completely ceased production. The D6 was very undervalued, despite having the best, fastest, most-accurate focus system ever in a DSLR across all uses (including low light and telephoto lenses with teleconverters). Price at introduction was US$6500, and that's still the price. Yes, you can still buy one new, but once the current inventory is flushed, we'll see this model in the future only as refurbished or some lingering gray market imports (assuming tariffs don't kill that). 

With the D6 end of production, we also lose one of Nikon's seminal image sensors, the 20.8 FX one originally fabbed by Toshiba. That image sensor—coupled with EXPEED6—was tuned in a way that produced remarkably great high ISO images, and that was additionally helped by it being the image sensor with the lowest pattern noise I've ever measured. 

The tariffs have made it a little more difficult to tell when a camera is about to go out of production. Pre-2025, you could usually predict a camera was going out of production when the instant rebates for it stopped (currently true of the D6 and D850). But with tariffs in effect now, it's possible that any resetting of price is just due to the additional cost of importing it into the US.

Meanwhile, with the latest rebates (and some refurbished deals) Nikon seems to be aggressively closing out F-mount Nikkors, as well. While I expect we'll see a base set of lenses linger—we still have manual focus Nikkors in stock, after all—with Nikon hoping to squeeze some last dollars from the DSLR base.

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*Regular production — When a model leaves regular production, that means the assembly line in the factory for it is shut down and that area repurposed. Nikon will sometimes hand assemble additional units for awhile to meet a real, on-going demand that is very low in volume, but continuous. For cameras that were bought and used by agencies, sometimes just the replacement for broken or abused cameras can sometimes sustain this hand production for a year or more.

As with my other sites, dslrbodies.com got a complete refresh over the holidays, and is now ready for 2025, not that I expect anything DSLR to happen in 2025. But you never know. The site is ready for whatever happens.

Because I never fully fleshed out and filled the Canon support on this site, dslrbodies has been trimmed to now be Nikon DSLR only. I’ve taken out the Canon DSLR pages from the site. As part of that, I’ve restructured the Nikon DSLR pages, separating them by DX/FX rather than current/older. 

You’ll notice that the menus are leaner and more organized, pages have been updated—I even added why I stopped recommending various products in some places (typically because a better version came along or a new higher-pixel camera obsoleted the recommendation—and links are cleaned up). Some new charts have popped up on the review index pages. Most pages have been updated to the current site style (there may be a few exceptions I didn’t catch). B&H links have been checked and removed when no longer available, added where they were missing. 

My DSLR books will eventually be moved off this site to a separate byThom Press site. No books will be harmed in the process. Everything should work cleaner and more clearly with the downloadable books once I've made that change. You might even see a couple of older books return once I get some time to clean them up.

One of my goals is to put general photography stuff on the byThom site, and keep the film SLRs, mirrorless, Z System, and DSLR sites focused more narrowly on those systems. 

An interesting thing happened recently behind the scenes. Nikon apparently was going to provide some huge discounts on F-mount lenses (e.g. US$4400 rebate on a 180-400mm f/4E TC FL ED VR lens, and similar big discounts on four other exotics as well as three f/1.4 primes). Nikonrumors published a hint on a Wednesday and a full list the next day. By the end of that second day, Nikon had apparently cancelled the program. At least that was the gist of an email B&H sent to its affiliates.

So, nothing announced, nothing launched, basically. 

The question I have is this: for nikonrumors to have published that list, it meant that there was a leak out of the NikonUSA dealer network, because that's the only place the rebates were discussed, let alone specifically enumerated. In the past few months several dealer leaks have occurred, and at least one of those was on nikonrumors via Service Photo, one of that site's advertisers. The NikonUSA staff was not happy with this, I'm told, and apparently has considered punishments. 

But that's not the real story here. The real story is that Nikon DSLRs (and lenses) are nearing last call. The only Nikon DSLR that clearly survives December's European Union regulation change is the D780. The Japanese plant that makes a number of the F-mount lenses is undergoing a complete overhaul. Nikon's market share in DSLRs has dropped to 20% or less, depending upon which statistics you believe, and the overall DSLR market has plummeted to the point where total units will potentially drop below 800k this year, worldwide. 

It seems incredible that it's only been seven years since the D850 was introduced. For much of its first two years of life, not only was the D850 the best all-around DSLR you could buy from anyone, it was in my top three interchangeable lens cameras, as well. Today a new D850 is selling for US$2500, which if we judge solely on features and image quality, still makes it a screaming bargain. It's just that flappy thing in its middle that keeps it from being a camera everyone wants to buy today. 

I'm on record as saying that I don't believe that DSLRs will be continued to be manufactured by Canon and Nikon in 2025 (though the D780 is a possible exception given that it uses an image sensor still in production for other Nikon cameras (Z6 II, Zf) and can survive the EU regulation changes. 

What usually happens at tail-end of market is that the camera makers use price in distribution third-world or emerging countries to sell out the last units. I believe that's where DSLRs are headed in 2025: South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and maybe India. By 2026 I doubt we'll see them anywhere, though it's unclear how much arbitraged gray market inventory is still sitting in Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

So, if you're a dedicated mirror slapper, should Nikon actually finally offer those big lens discounts, it's probably your last chance to pick up superb optics at unheard of prices; at least new, with warranty. 

Nikon's a little busy recovering from the Olympics at the moment (and some other things we should hear about by the end of summer), so it might take a bit for the next deals to appear, but I'm confident they will.

Meanwhile, Sigma has started discontinuing some of their Canon EF mount lenses, in particular two well regarded ones, the 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM and the 500mm f/4 DG OS HSM. Elvis is in the process of leaving the building, folks.

With Nikon DSLRs now aging out in every way, this is starting to pose a problem for those who wish to continue using their cameras.

First up, NikonUSA now is specifically one-year warranty only on new DSLRs and F-mount lenses (90 days for refurbished). So you don't have a long period where you can get your camera repaired free of charge for non-user caused issues. Europe and some other locales have two-year warranties or offer for-fee extensions. 

Second, there's the issue of whether a product is still being manufactured or not. Here in the US, Nikon generally follows the California repair rules, which means that they will repair or replace out of warranty products for up to seven years after last date of manufacture. This is starting to push older DSLRs into "unrepairability." To wit: D3400 or earlier, D5500 or earlier, D7200 or earlier. The D3500, D5600, D500, and D5 are getting close to that same status.  

One thing to note is the "or replace" clause. It is very likely that at some point a non-repairable under warranty DSLR or F-mount lens might be replaced either with a refurbished item, or problematically, with a Z-system item. The latter hasn't happened, to my knowledge, but the former has happened when parts are not available for repair in a timely fashion.

Frankly, the D5 and D500 are state of the art cameras still. In particular, the D500 is still the best all-around APS-C camera today, as far as I'm concerned, even though you can no longer buy it new in the US (gray market "new" is still available, though). So it's insane that the D500 is nearing end-of-repairability (by Nikon; a third party repair facility may be able to scavenge parts and repair it). 

Moving on to older cameras, where you might eventually have an issue either to a part wearing out or an accident with the camera. What do you do when, say, your D3x suddenly needs repair? It's long past the seven year guaranteed repair rule. But maybe your camera can be repaired; only NikonUSA can tell you if they have the parts and ability to make repairs on older cameras.

My long-stated advice about repair versus replace still stands. If a repair is something other than superficial, it's going to more often than not cost US$300 to US$600 at NikonUSA to repair these days, depending upon how much tear down is involved (the only parts specific costs that tend to drive that cost higher are image sensor or digital camera board). The very first thing you should do is look at what the cost of a used version of your camera in excellent condition would be from a reputable source (e.g. B&H, KEH, etc.). In some cases, NikonUSA may have refurbished (or even new) versions of older cameras available (currently D5600, D7500, D750, D780, D850, Df). If the price of replacement is lower than expected repair cost, it's a no-brainer: replace your broken product with a new, used, or refurbished copy. Keep your broken camera around for spare parts should you ever need to have the used version repaired. 

The trickier part is if you desire to "upgrade" to replace your broken older camera. Realistically, this doesn't tend to make monetary sense. If your older camera was acceptable before, repairing it or replacing it with a used version is likely less expensive than upgrading to something new. Given that your DSLR choices are limited now, it's likely that you'd consider mirrorless for any true upgrade, and then other costs start piling on top of the body-only cost. 

Most people justify the upgrade option by convincing themselves that the newer features and performance are what they need. This is not necessarily true. Again, the D500: you can't get any APS-C camera as good as the D500 from anyone, DSLR or mirrorless,  so you end up "buying upward" (e.g. D850 or Z8). Yes, you get "more," but you're going to pay big time for that when perhaps all you wanted was what you had to continue to work.

There's little doubt that the DSLR options are going to get fewer and fewer over time. If you're the "plan ahead" type, buying an extra body today might be a wise choice, while they're still available. Either that or plan for an eventual upgrade to mirrorless and the costs that are likely to come with that.