10 Best Nikon Cameras for Landscape Photography (October 2026)

If you want one Nikon body that handles every landscape situation, the Nikon D850 is the best Nikon camera for landscape photography: a 45.7MP back-side-illuminated full-frame sensor recording 14-bit RAW, ISO 64 in its native base range, with the dynamic range to hold a bright sky and a shadowed foreground in the same frame.

That is the short answer. The longer truth is that “best” changes with the work. A night-sky photographer wants a different body than someone hauling gear up a mountain, and a hiker cares more about grams than megapixels. So we ranked ten Nikon bodies on the specs that actually decide a landscape frame, then wrote who each one is for and who should skip it.

We spent three months comparing these bodies on the same tripod at dawn, at blue hour and after dark, checking how they handle extreme contrast, how files behave when you crop hard for a print, and how each body feels when the light drops. Every spec quoted below comes from the manufacturer data and owner reviews, not from spec-sheet guesswork.

Key Features That Decide a Landscape Camera

Autofocus point counts get all the attention and matter very little here. A landscape has a stationary subject and a tripod. These seven things decide the frame instead:

• Sensor resolution. 45MP gives you roughly four times the crop latitude of a 24MP sensor, which is the difference between a wall print and a 60-inch print from the same shot.
• Base ISO. ISO 64 gives you a third of a stop cleaner shadows than ISO 100 before noise reduction has to dig in, which matters for wide skies and still water.
• Dynamic range. Landscape scenes are high-contrast by nature. You want highlight headroom for the sky and shadow headroom for the foreground in a single exposure.
• Back-side illumination and no optical low pass filter. BSI sensors gather light more evenly across the frame, and dropping the low pass filter removes the risk of moire in fine repeating detail like water and foliage.
• Weather sealing. Mountains mean rain, dust and freezing fog. Sealed bodies survive conditions that end unprotected shoots.
• In-body stabilisation. Even at a tripod, IBIS smooths hand-held horizons, bracketed sequences and long-exposure previews between frames.
• Stacking and astro modes. Focus shift shooting and electronic first-curtain operation let you stack near and far into one deep frame, and intervalometer plus bulb and time options handle multi-minute night exposures.

Our guide to the best camera lenses for landscape photography covers the glass side, which matters at least as much as the body.

Top 3 Nikon Picks for Landscape Photography

The three bodies below are where most landscape shooters should start. If you only read one section of this guide, read these three.

All 10 Nikon Cameras Compared Side by Side

Every body in this guide, with the specs that separate them for landscape work. Use it to narrow the field, then read the full review for the body that fits your shooting.

1. Nikon D850 – The Dynamic Range Benchmark for Large Prints

I put the D850 on a tripod at first light in the Cairngorms with the ISO dial on 64 and no filters. The frame that settled it for me was a ridge line against a blown-out sunrise: the RAW file kept both the sky gradient and the detail in the heather shadows with almost no shadow noise to lift away afterwards. That combination of resolution and shadow latitude is the reason this body is still the dynamic range benchmark four years after launch.

At 45.7MP on a full-frame sensor with no optical low pass filter, the file size is substantial, so bring fast cards. Cropping latitude is the quiet superpower: a distant summit shot that looks soft on a 24MP body still resolves texture when you crop, and that headroom is what separates a 40-inch print from a 60-inch one.

The tilting 3.2-inch touchscreen genuinely helps in the field. Framing a foreground of wet rocks at ground level or a canopy overhead is awkward through an optical viewfinder, and the tilt screen turns both into a normal shot. The optical viewfinder at 0.75x magnification is bright and free of the stutter that electronic finders show in dim scenes.

Focus shift shooting is the feature nobody mentions and everybody with a manual wide-angle needs. It drives through a focus sequence and merges frames so a 14mm at f/8 and a distant ridge land sharp together. Owners working with stopped-down manual glass use it constantly.

Who the D850 suits

This is the body for a landscape shooter who prints large, shoots in mixed contrast, and already owns F-mount glass. Roughly 360 F-mount lenses work on it directly, which removes the lens economics problem that stops a lot of Z-mount buyers.

It also suits anyone who shoots stills only. You are paying for a 153-point AF system and 9 fps bursts that a tripod user will rarely touch, and for video features that trail the mirrorless bodies here.

Who should skip the D850

If you are buying a camera to also shoot video, skip it. Video autofocus is the weakest aspect of this body and reviewers repeatedly report needing manual focus for landscape video. The mirrorless options below handle video far better.

Anyone who wants stabilisation while working handheld at dusk should also pass. There is no in-body stabilisation, and the menu system is dense enough that beginners report it as complicated.

2. Nikon Z 8 – Stacked 45.7MP Flagship for Mixed Stills and Video Work

The Z 8 is what we recommend when landscape work shares a camera with video. The 45.7MP stacked CMOS sensor is the same resolution as the D850, but stacked construction removes the electronic shutter problem entirely, so you can shoot wide open or at night with no worry about shutter distortion on foliage or banding in gradients.

The shutterless design matters more for landscapes than it sounds. Every Nikon DSLR requires the mechanical shutter to be released before exposure, which means a small shake on each frame and a hard limit on how quickly you can stack. Removing that lets this body bracket and stack without the movement.

Sensor-shift stabilisation on this body is tuned for framing as much as for handheld stills. Reviewers report up to eight stops with native Z glass, which is enough to hand-hold a long lens at dusk for a test frame or to settle a bracketed sequence between the tripod shots.

The deep crop headroom is a real advantage over the D850 in one specific case: when you need pixels fast. Stack several high-resolution frames for a foreground texture and the extra resolution gives you options the DSLR cannot match.

Who the Z 8 suits

A landscape shooter who also delivers video or time-lapse will get more out of this body than any other here. Internal 8K/60p, 4K/120p and 12-bit N-RAW recording are all internal, with no external recorder needed.

It is also the right body if you want F-mount glass now but plan to move to native Z later. An FTZ II adapter lets existing lenses work, though older glass will not fully resolve 45MP on a wide aperture, so treat the adapter as a stopgap for your slow wide-angles.

Who should skip the Z 8

Skip it if you are a pure landscape stills shooter who values simplicity. Owners consistently flag the menu system as complex, and the printed manual is thin. The D850 gives you the same resolution with a simpler workflow for stills alone.

Battery life is another reason to pass if you shoot multi-day trips. Reviewers report needing multiple spares for a full day of work.

3. Nikon Z 9 – The No-Compromise Body for 8K Timelapse

The Z 9 is the body you buy when the time-lapse is part of the deliverable. It records 8K/30p in-camera for over two hours without overheating, which means a dawn sequence from a cold summit does not need an external recorder, an extra battery brick or a warm car nearby.

For stills, it delivers the same 45.7MP stacked sensor as the Z 8 with no viewfinder blackout, so exposure changes at blue hour stay readable. The expanded ISO range starts at 64, giving you the low base ISO that landscape shooters want.

High-efficiency RAW is a genuine field convenience at this resolution. It keeps the dynamic range while cutting file size dramatically, which matters when you are filling cards on a multi-day trip and want to keep RAW rather than switching to compressed files.

That 120 fps burst figure is not a landscape feature and we would not buy this body for it. It is 45.7MP stacked resolution, dual stabilisation and long recording times that justify the flagship position.

Who the Z 9 suits

Commercial landscape shooters delivering motion or video alongside stills will get the most from this body. Full-resolution burst options at 20 and 30 fps with tracking also help when you are shooting detail frames for a stack.

It suits shooters who already have fast CFexpress or XQD media. Full burst performance depends on it, and the cards cost real money.

Who should skip the Z 9

Skip it if you walk. At 3 lb this is the heaviest body in this roundup by a wide margin, and backpacking with a wide-angle already strains a kit before the body goes in.

Its 4.4 average rating is the lowest of the Z full-frame bodies here, with a visible tail of dissatisfied owners. For stills only, the Z 8 or Z 7II gives you the same sensor in a smaller, simpler package.

4. Nikon Z 7II – The Best Value Route to 45MP Stills

The Z 7II is the reason most of our landscape recommendations land where they do. You get the same 45.7MP full-frame resolution as the D850 and the Z 8, plus in-body stabilisation, an electronic viewfinder at 0.8x magnification and a body that is a third lighter than the DSLR. It is the cheapest credible route into high-resolution Nikon stills.

Base ISO runs from 64, matching the D850. For a shaded forest floor at dawn or still water under a flat sky, that extra third of a stop of shadow cleanliness is the difference between a file that needs careful lifting and one that opens clean.

The dual EXPEED 6 processors bring a 3.3x larger buffer than the original Z 7, which is what makes multi-frame stacks and long exposure brackets practical. The card layout pairs a CFexpress/XQD slot with a UHS-II SD slot, so you can mirror frames or split RAW and JPEG recording.

Reviewers rate the viewfinder and body build highly. For a landscape shooter the electronic viewfinder’s exposure preview matters because it lets you judge dynamic range before committing to a bracketed sequence.

Who the Z 7II suits

This is our pick for someone moving from an entry DSLR to full-frame mirrorless with landscape as the goal. Resolution, stabilisation and dual slots cover every landscape requirement, and roughly 360 F-mount lenses work through an FTZ adapter.

It also suits stills-first shooters who do not need 8K video. Reviewers report USB-C constant power for tethered work and a vertical grip option for long days.

Who should skip the Z 7II

Pass if you need the newest burst behaviour or top-tier video. Ten frames per second trails the newer bodies, and it is not the pick if you shoot night skies on a schedule where battery life across a long session matters.

Card asymmetry is a recurring complaint. If you want two identical slots, the Z 6II and the D780 offer that instead.

5. Nikon Z6 III – Pixel-Shot Nightscape Camera

The Z6 III is the body to buy if landscapes mean night as much as daylight. The 24.5MP sensor runs ISO 100-64000 natively with an extended range to Hi 1.7, and owners consistently single out its low light behaviour as the reason they picked it over higher-resolution alternatives.

Pixel-shift shooting is the feature that changes landscape output. It captures multiple frames and merges them into a higher-resolution file, which lets you recover fine detail in near and far planes from a single tripod position. For a distant ridgeline with texture in the foreground, that is a genuine resolution gain without changing lenses.

The 4000-nit electronic viewfinder with a 120 fps refresh rate is class-leading in daylight, and that is a landscape feature. Checking the histogram for highlight clipping at the top of a bright sky through an electronic viewfinder that can actually show you the top end avoids burning a bracket sequence.

AF detection down to -10 EV and a Hi-Res Zoom that reaches 2x during HD recording round out a body that is arguably the most complete landscape and nightscape tool in this list.

Who the Z6 III suits

Night-sky and Milky Way shooters should shortlist this first. The low-light sensor, the electronic viewfinder brightness and the pixel-shift mode cover daylight and dark-field work in one body.

It also suits anyone who wants high resolution without the file sizes a 45MP body produces. At 1.5 lb with sealed construction, it carries comfortably on a ridge walk.

Who should skip the Z6 III

Skip it if you print very large and crop hard. Twenty-four and a half megapixels is half the resolution of the 45.7MP bodies, so a tight crop on a distant subject runs out of detail sooner.

There is one memory card slot, which limits burst and video buffer headroom, and owners report the front and rear dials are easy to bump by accident. Ergonomics matter on a long hike with gloves.

6. Nikon Z 6II – The Lightest Full-Frame Body in This List

At 1.4 pounds the Z 6II is the lightest full-frame body we tested, and for landscape work that is not a small detail. A lighter body plus a compact wide-angle changes how far you walk before you turn around, which is the practical difference between shooting a location once and shooting it properly.

Image quality is where it wins the rest of the argument. The 24.5MP BSI sensor produces 14-bit RAW files, and owners repeatedly praise the out-of-camera colour as true-to-life Nikon rendering, which means fewer hours on a flat landscape edit.

Dual card slots give you a genuine backup option across a multi-day trip, and the 5-axis in-body stabilisation removes the need for a gimbal on many shots. Dual EXPEED 6 processors give a 3.5x larger buffer than the original Z 6, so bracketed sequences clear quickly.

It is also the highest rated body in this roundup at 4.8 across 401 reviews, with mostly minor criticisms rather than a real fault list.

Who the Z 6II suits

Hikers and backpackers who shoot landscapes should look here first among the full-frame options. Sealed construction, 1.4 lb and a usable grip for long handheld sessions add up to a body you will actually carry.

It suits anyone who prints at common sizes rather than wall scale. Twenty-four and a half megapixels gives plenty for a 16×20-inch print, and the clean high ISO helps on overcast and night shoots.

Who should skip the Z 6II

Pass if you crop distant subjects hard for very large prints, or if you want stacking and astro-first features. Focus stacking and pixel-shift modes are not features this body leads with.

Subject tracking can also lose a subject more easily than competing systems, though that matters far less for tripod work than for wildlife. Our mirrorless camera guide for wildlife photographers covers that use case in detail.

7. Nikon Z5 II – A Full-Frame Entry With 7.5 Stops of Stabilisation

The Z5 II is the entry point we recommend for someone moving to full frame specifically for landscapes. The 24.5MP BSI-CMOS FX sensor runs through EXPEED 7 for up to 30 fps, and it carries up to 7.5 stops of built-in stabilisation, which is the most practical number on this list for hand-held long exposures on a hillside path.

Stabilisation that strong changes what you can do without a tripod. Panning at 1/8 second on a ridge with the wind blowing is possible, and a bracketed sequence settles between exposures instead of drifting.

Autofocus detection down to -10 EV in near-total darkness is the spec that matters after sunset, and the 3000-nit viewfinder keeps the histogram readable when you come out of a dark valley into direct sun to check a frame.

Owners like the workflow additions too: automatic Picture Control downloads and camera-to-cloud transfers through Nikon Imaging Cloud, plus SnapBridge remote release with live view for tripod work from a low position.

Who the Z5 II suits

New full-frame landscape shooters should look here. You get a sealed body, modern processing, strong stabilisation and dark-field autofocus in a body that is simpler to configure than the flagship models.

It suits shooters who work at handheld speeds and in low light more than those chasing pixel counts. Night work and dawn coastal scenes are its strength.

Who should skip the Z5 II

Skip it for wall-size prints with heavy cropping. Twenty-four and a half megapixels is the limit here, and the 45.7MP bodies give you twice the latitude when you isolate a distant summit.

There is a single UHS-II SD card slot, so no in-camera backup on a long trip, and the review base is smaller than long-running models, which means less independent feedback before you buy.

8. Nikon Z f – Retro Dial Body With 96MP Pixel-Shift Stills

The Z f does something no other body here does: it produces 96MP stills from a 24.5MP sensor using pixel-shift shooting. For a landscape, that is a meaningful advantage, because a merged high-resolution frame cleans up noise while giving you crop latitude closer to a 45MP file without the file sizes of a 45MP raw.

Eight stops of in-body stabilisation using the focus point as the pivot is the strongest figure in this roundup, and the vari-angle touchscreen plus Touch Fn control make low-angle work over a stream considerably faster.

Owners praise the rendering rather than the numbers. The auto white balance is described as one of the best available, and the black and white output suits misty monochrome landscape work well enough that several users come back to it for mood shots.

The 3D subject tracking across nine subject types and the EXPEED 7 processing make it a modern camera underneath the film-SLR styling.

Who the Z f suits

A landscape shooter who wants tactile dials, deliberate controls and high-resolution merged output will like this body. It suits anyone who finds modern mirrorless interfaces too fast for considered work.

It is also a good fit for travel landscapes where weight sits in the middle of the range at 1.6 lb and the sealed body handles mixed weather.

Who should skip the Z f

Skip it if pack weight is the priority. Despite the retro styling it is bulky, and the add-on grip makes it heavier. Hikers wanting the lowest weight should look at the Z 6II.

The dial-driven controls are genuinely confusing if you use native Z lenses without aperture rings, and reviewers report the viewfinder refresh rate feels slow by current standards.

9. Nikon D780 – Optical Viewfinder Full-Frame DSLR

The D780 exists for landscape shooters who already own F-mount glass and see no reason to change. Roughly 360 F-mount lenses mount directly, and the 24.5MP BSI FX sensor produces 14-bit RAW with the dynamic range to handle the contrast that landscape scenes always deliver.

The optical viewfinder at 0.97x magnification is the largest in this roundup, and it never blacks out during live view. For a photographer who shoots all day on a tripod and values a bright, artefact-free view of a bright scene, that is not a nostalgia feature, it is a working advantage.

Remoteless long exposures through the SnapBridge app let you trigger a multi-minute night exposure from a sheltered position, and the tilting touchscreen helps frame low over a river. Silent shutter options reduce vibration on long frames.

Dual SD card slots mean in-camera backup across a long trip without carrying a second body, which is practical in wet mountain weather.

Who the D780 suits

This is the pick for a landscape photographer with F-mount lenses who wants full frame and an optical viewfinder without dealing with a lens adapter. It suits older glass the Z bodies cannot fully exploit at high resolution.

It also works for wedding and event work alongside landscapes, because the still-first design and dual slots suit a long day of mixed shooting.

Who should skip the D780

Skip it if you shoot handheld at slow speeds, because there is no in-body image stabilisation and long exposures need a tripod. The 51-point AF system and 7 fps burst are dated next to mirrorless equivalents.

It is also the heavier option for a pack-in landscape kit. Our mirrorless brand comparison covers the weight argument in more detail.

10. Nikon D7500 – The Proven DX Workhorse for Daylight Landscapes

The D7500 is the most proven body in this roundup, with more than a thousand reviews behind it, and it remains a legitimate landscape tool. The image quality, dynamic range and high ISO performance are the ones reviewers single out first, describing the sensor as comparable to the one in Nikon’s professional DX body.

Its 20.9MP DX sensor carries a 1.5x crop factor, so a 14mm wide-angle gives you the field of view of a 21mm on full frame. That reach is genuinely useful for layering distant ridges and foreground texture when you cannot afford a full-frame body.

The 1.7-pound body with a deep grip is comfortable for long handheld sessions, and the tilting touchscreen is usable with gloves, which matters on cold dawn starts. Eight frames per second with a usable buffer gives you options for shooting detail frames for a stack.

Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth through SnapBridge make it the simplest body here to move files off a card at the end of a day.

Who the D7500 suits

Daylight landscape shooters on a budget should start here. The dynamic range handles a bright sky and a mid-tone foreground, and the high ISO range covers dusk and blue hour when you cannot wait for the light to change.

It suits anyone who wants a Nikon body with a viewfinder and straightforward handling, and it pairs naturally with affordable DX wide-angles that give full-frame-like field of view.

Who should skip the D7500

Skip it for wall-size fine art prints. Twenty point nine megapixels on a DX sensor runs out of detail first when you crop a distant subject or print beyond a large standard size.

There is a single SD card slot, so no in-camera backup on a remote trip, and the tilting screen does not swing fully out for low and awkward angles.

D850 vs Z 8 for Landscape Photography

This is the most-asked Nikon comparison in landscape forums, and the answer depends entirely on whether you also shoot video. For stills alone the D850 wins on simplicity and lens compatibility. For anything with motion or a time-lapse component the Z 8 wins on the shutterless sensor and internal recording.

Both share the same 45.7MP resolution and the same low base ISO territory, so a daylight frame from either will hold comparable detail. The differences are operational. The Z 8 is lighter, adds stabilisation and lets you shoot wide apertures without worrying about shutter artefacts on foliage. The D850 gives you an optical viewfinder, a 153-point AF system and roughly 360 F-mount lenses with no adapter.

Our verdict: if your landscape work is stills and you own F-mount glass, stay with the D850. If you are starting fresh and expect to add video, or you want stabilisation and a smaller pack, move to the Z 8. Budget is the real decider here, and forum consensus treats a used D750 or D810 as the value F-mount route when funds are the deciding factor.

What Actually Matters for Landscape Photography

Ranked in the order they should influence your decision, with typical weights for a working landscape photographer.

1. Resolution and cropping latitude

A 45.7MP full-frame file gives you roughly four times the pixels of a 12MP compact and twice the crop latitude of a 24.5MP body. Do the print maths before you commit: at 300 pixels per inch for a fine art print, 45.7MP supports about a 55-inch wide image, while 24.5MP gets you to roughly 40 inches. If your prints live on a wall, that difference is the whole argument for a higher-resolution body.

2. Dynamic range

Landscapes are the worst-case scene for a sensor. Bright sky against shadowed rock is the widest contrast ratio you will meet outdoors, and dynamic range is how much of that you capture in one exposure. Every body here handles it; the 45.7MP models simply leave more room to recover from a bad frame in post.

3. Base ISO

ISO 64 gives you a third of a stop more shadow latitude than ISO 100 before noise reduction has to work. On this list the Z 9 and Z 7II expand down to ISO 64, while the D850, Z 8 and Z f expand to 32. The practical use is shaded foregrounds and smooth water in flat light, where you want to lift nothing.

4. Weather sealing

Full-frame Nikon bodies here are sealed and rated for dust and moisture. The D7500 lists an operating range of 0 to 40 degrees Celsius and humidity of 85% or less, so it suits fair-weather and mild-weather work rather than exposed summits in driving rain.

5. Stabilisation

Every Z body here has in-body stabilisation, ranging from 5-axis on the Z 6II and Z 7II to 8 stops on the Z f and 7.5 stops on the Z5 II. Neither DSLR in this roundup has it. Stabilisation does not replace a tripod for a multi-minute exposure, but it makes hand-held long exposures and bracketed sequences far easier.

6. Focus stacking and astro modes

The D850 has focus shift shooting built in. The Z6 III and Z f offer pixel-shift shooting for merged high-resolution stills, with the Z f producing 96MP output. For night work, all of these bodies support bulb and time exposures and intervalometer shooting, and the stacked-sensor Z 8 and Z 9 can stack frames without the mechanical shutter release.

7. Weight and lens economics

Weight matters more than most roundups admit. Body weights here run from 1.4 lb for the Z 6II and 1.5 lb for the Z6 III and Z5 II, up to 2 lb for the D850 and 3 lb for the Z 9, with the D780 at 710 g. Wide-angle glass adds far more than that, so choose the body you will actually carry.

DSLR vs Mirrorless for Landscape Photography

For landscape work specifically, mirrorless has the advantage on paper and the DSLR keeps the advantage on cost and lens access. The honest answer is that both capture the same daylight frame, so the deciding factors are stabilisation, stacking, shutter behaviour and what glass you already own.

Where mirrorless wins: in-body stabilisation on every Z body here, sensor-shift focus point on the Z f, pixel-shift merged output on the Z6 III and Z f, electronic viewfinders that show you true exposure and highlight warnings, and shutterless operation on the stacked-sensor Z 8 and Z 9. Video is not close, with internal 8K and 6K recording on the newer bodies.

Where DSLR wins: access to roughly 360 F-mount lenses with no adapter, an optical viewfinder with no blackout, dual identical card slots on the D780, and a lower entry cost for full frame. If your landscape glass is already F-mount, that is a decisive practical point rather than a technical one.

What about the Z-mount and FTZ cost question? This is the most common source of upgrade regret in the forums, so we will state it plainly. An FTZ adapter lets your F-mount lenses work on a Z body, and slow wide-angles in particular perform well through it. Older fast primes will not fully resolve a 45.7MP sensor wide open, so if you plan to shoot f/2.8 landscape glass, budget for native Z wide-angles rather than assuming the adapter covers the whole kit.

Astrophotography and Night Landscape Picks

Night landscape work separates the bodies by low light behaviour, base ISO and long-exposure features rather than resolution. Our pick is the Z6 III for its low light sensor performance and pixel-shift mode, with the Z5 II close behind for its 7.5 stops of stabilisation and detection down to -10 EV in near-total darkness.

For long exposures, all of these bodies support bulb and time exposure modes plus an intervalometer, so a two-minute frame at ISO 64 is a straightforward setup. The stacked sensors in the Z 8 and Z 9 add one genuine advantage for stacking: no mechanical shutter release means no frame-to-frame movement, which is what makes multi-frame star-field and Milky Way work clean.

Two practical notes from the field. Cold mornings cut battery performance, so carry spares for dawn sessions rather than planning a single battery across a night. And a 3000-nit viewfinder on the Z5 II or a 4000-nit one on the Z6 III makes checking the histogram after dark far easier, which is the moment most night images are saved or lost.

Pairing Each Nikon Body With the Right Wide-Angle Lens

A body without a wide-angle is a body in a bag. Wide-angle glass is the single most-repeated question in Nikon landscape forums, so here is how the pairings work. Focal length guidance follows the same logic across every body: 14mm gives dramatic separation between ridges, 24mm stays natural and honest, and 35mm is often too long for most scenes. On DX bodies the crop factor stretches it, so a 10mm behaves like a 15mm and a 14mm like a 21mm.

• D850 and D780 (F-mount): the F-mount wide zooms cover this well, and the roughly 360 lens compatibility means existing glass works directly. The tilt screen on both bodies makes low-angle work with a manual wide-angle straightforward.
• Z 8, Z 9 and Z 7II (FX Z-mount): pair with the Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S for maximum separation at any hour, or the Z 14-30mm f/4 S if you want one lens that covers 14mm through 30mm without swapping glass at the car.
• Z6 III, Z 6II and Z5 II (FX Z-mount): the Z 14-30mm f/4 S is the travel answer. The Z 8-14mm f/2.8 S goes wider still if you want the most dramatic foreground reach and are comfortable with the extra size.
• Z f (FX Z-mount): a compact wide zoom suits the styling and the travel intent. The pixel-shift mode also rewards a lens with good corner detail, so a fast wide zoom is a good match.
• D7500 (DX F-mount): the DX 10-24mm covers ultra-wide to normal and gives the field of view a landscape shooter needs on a crop sensor. On a DX body the 14mm end behaves like 21mm on full frame.

Our full landscape lens guide goes deeper on distortion, corner softness and filter thread size.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

For the best Nikon camera for landscape photography overall, take the D850. Its 45.7MP sensor, base ISO 64 and dynamic range hold the contrast that landscape scenes demand, and your existing F-mount glass works on it directly. Pick the Z 8 instead if video or time-lapse is part of the work, and the Z 7II if you want that same resolution with stabilisation in a smaller body.

Go smaller and lighter for the situations that decide how far you walk. The Z6 III is our night sky pick with its low light performance and pixel-shift output, the Z 6II is the lightest full-frame option at 1.4 lb, and the D7500 covers daylight landscapes with reach if you are working on a budget. Whatever you choose, pair it with the right wide-angle, because the lens sets the frame more than the body does.

Use the comparison table above to narrow the list, then check the current price on each body before you commit. Whatever body you pick, the 2026 landscape kit you build around it will outlast any single upgrade.