Good news if you are still shooting F mount. Nikon has pushed out fresh firmware for the Nikon D6 and the Nikon D780 , and while neither update is going to change how you shoot, the fact that these two are still getting attention in 2026 is worth saying out loud.
Nikon Releases New Firmware for the D6 and D780
Both updates went live on August 5 and both are pure bug fixes. No new features, no autofocus overhaul, nothing that reads exciting on paper. What they do fix are exposure problems, which is the category of bug you only notice after it has already ruined a frame you cannot go back and take again.
What Changed in the D6 Firmware 1.71
The flagship moves to version 1.71 , and Nikon lists two fixes:
Photos taken would sometimes be underexposed with a D-type lens attached.
Recalling shooting functions would sometimes limit the shutter speed to 1/250 s with auto FP high-speed sync.
The D-type lens fix is the one I would care about most. Plenty of D6 owners still have a drawer of older screw-drive Nikkor glass, and a body that occasionally meters those lenses wrong is a genuinely annoying thing to chase. If you have ever pulled a card and wondered why a handful of frames came back a stop dark with no obvious pattern, this might be why.
The second fix is narrower but it matters if you shoot flash. The whole point of auto FP high-speed sync is getting past the normal sync speed, so having a recalled shooting function quietly clamp you back to 1/250 s defeats the feature. Anyone doing fill flash on sports or portraits in bright sun will want this one.
What Changed in the D780 Firmware 1.21
The D780 goes to version 1.21 , with a single fix:
Photos taken would sometimes be underexposed when zoom was adjusted during burst photography in high-speed continuous release mode.
That is the entire list. One line. But look at what it actually describes, because zooming mid-burst is not some obscure edge case. It is exactly what you do when a bird banks toward you and suddenly fills more of the frame than you planned for, or when a player breaks toward the sideline you are standing on. If you shoot wildlife or action with a zoom, you have almost certainly done this a hundred times, and some of those frames were coming back underexposed.
Nikon's Last Two DSLRs, Six Years On
Here is the part that makes this more than a routine changelog. The D780 arrived in January 2020 and the D6 followed a month later, and Nikon has not released a new DSLR since. These two are the end of the line, and the whole industry has moved to mirrorless in the years since.
So getting a firmware release in the summer of 2026 for a pair of six-year-old bodies that have no successor coming is not nothing. Nikon has form here too. It shipped updates to this same pair almost exactly a year ago in last August's D6 and D780 firmware release , and back in late 2024 it went further and pushed updates to two eight-year-old cameras . That is a better track record than most of us expected once the Z bodies took over the roadmap.
Nikon D6 vs Z9
Here is how the two compare, and I have thrown the Nikon Z9 into the table as well, since it is effectively what took the D6's place at the top of the lineup:
FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON Model Nikon D6 Nikon D780 Nikon Z9 Sensor Resolution 21.0 MP 25.0 MP 46.0 MP Announced Date 2020-02-11 2020-01-07 2021-10-29 Camera Type Pro DSLR Advanced DSLR Pro Mirrorless Sensor Type CMOS BSI-CMOS Stacked CMOS Sensor Size Full frame Full frame Full frame Sensor Sensitivity ISO 100 - 102400( expands to 50 - 3280000) ISO 100 - 51200( expands to 50 - 204800) ISO 64 - 25600( expands to 32 - 102400) Lens Mount Nikon F Nikon F Nikon Z Image Stabil. No No Sensor-shift ( up to 6.0 stops) Eye Tracking Focus Weight 1270g 840g 1340g Dimensions 160 x 163 x 92mm 144 x 116 x 76mm 149 x 150 x 91mm Weather Sealing Focus Points 105 51 493 Min AF Detecting Range -4.5eV -4eV -7.0eV Animal Eye Tracking Focus Stacking Focus Bracket Minimum Shutter 900 sec 900 sec 900 sec Maximum Shutter 1/8000sec 1/8000sec 1/32000sec Continuous Drive 14.0fps 7.0fps 30.0fps Max Video Reso 3840 x 2160 3840 x 2160 7680 x 4320 Video fps at Max 30p,25p,24p 30p,25p,24p 30p, 25p, 24p Video Formats MPEG-4, H.264 MPEG-4, H.264 H.264, H.265 Storage Slot 2 2 2 Battery Life 3580 2260 740 Battery Model EN-EL18c EN-EL15b EN-EL18d RAW Video Webcam Anti Flicker Microphone Port Headphone Port Wifi Weather Sealing Timelapse Screen Type Fixed Tilting Tilting Top LCD LCD Size 3.20" 3.20" 3.20" Screen dots 2359000 2359000 2088960 Touch Screen Viewfinder Viewfinder Type Optical (pentaprism) Optical (pentaprism) Electronic Viewfinder Coverage 100% 100% 100% Viewfinder Magnification 0.72x 0.7x 0.8x AF Joystick Bluetooth Full-size HDMI Port Vehicle Tracking Price Amazon B&H Photo Amazon B&H Photo Amazon B&H Photo
The gap between the D6 and the Z9 is wide enough that nobody should be surprised by it, and if you are weighing whether to stay on the flagship DSLR or move over, it is worth taking a minute to put the D6 and the Z9 side by side properly. There are still real reasons people hold onto the D6, starting with the optical viewfinder and a battery life figure mirrorless bodies do not get near.
The Honest Part: This Is Maintenance, Not a Future
I do not want to oversell what happened here, because the temptation with a story like this is to turn it into a feel-good piece about a company standing by its customers. Read the actual release notes. Three bug fixes across two cameras, all of them exposure related, none of them adding a single thing the cameras could not do before.
This is not the kind of firmware Nikon ships to Z bodies, where new autofocus subject detection or a new video mode shows up and genuinely changes what the camera is capable of. Nobody is getting bird detection AF added to a D6. What you are getting is a company patching defects it found, which is the floor of good behaviour rather than the ceiling.
It also means you should be clear-eyed if you are thinking about buying into the F mount today because of updates like this one. These bodies are feature-frozen. The lens roadmap for the mount ended years ago, whatever new glass gets designed is going to Z, and support for a discontinued flagship eventually turns into parts availability rather than software. If you already own a D6 or a D780 and love it, this is a nice reminder that Nikon has not walked away. If you are shopping fresh in 2026 and expecting the DSLR line to keep getting better, that is not what this is.
Where these cameras still make sense: you have a pile of F mount glass you are not ready to replace, you genuinely prefer an optical finder, you shoot long days where the D6's battery is a real advantage, or you are picking up a used body at a price no mirrorless equivalent can touch. Those are all good reasons and this firmware makes them slightly better. Where they do not make sense: you are starting from zero and want the best autofocus and video you can get for the money. Go look at the Nikon Z mount cameras instead.
Should You Update?
Yes, on both bodies. There is no downside here. These are fixes with no new features attached, so there is nothing to relearn and no behaviour change to get used to, and the exposure bugs they address are the sort that cost you keepers without announcing themselves. Grab the files from Nikon's download center, D6 owners want the 1.71 package and D780 owners want 1.21.
If you are shopping for either body, or just curious where prices have landed now that these have been on the market a while:
Amazon price checked 9 hours ago
And the usual firmware housekeeping applies, because a bricked body is a much bigger problem than an occasionally underexposed frame:
Charge the battery fully before you start, use a freshly formatted card, and do not power the camera off or pull the card until the update reports that it has finished. It takes a few minutes. Do not rush it.
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Written by Mel Adali
I have been shooting birds and wildlife in North Carolina since 2014, mostly with Sony bodies and long telephoto glass. I built and maintain the Camera Decision database, so the specs and comparisons here come from data I curate myself rather than copied press releases.
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