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.
