buying GH2 body in korea: gray market japanese or more expensive export version?

J

jweeke

Member
japanese version is readily available at about $850. would need to hack it to english, which, while possible, could be a pain in the butt (google's loathe to share its GH2 language hack secrets). also, the warrantee is good only in japan, so i'd have to go there or send the camera there to get it repaired.

the export version is not readily available, but one store offered to sell me just the body out of a kit for about $1000. this body won't require a language hack, and has an international warrantee.

so what do you think? save the $150 for equipment rentals or spend it on the sure thing?

also, they've got a LOT of voigtlander 25mms for 900 or so. do i smuggle some back to the states?

cheers!
 
If you can wait a little, I'd just go back to the states and get it for $900. If not, I'd get the export version for the warranty.
 
$150 in savings is NOT worth the potential risks.

and if it is, then you shouldnt be buying a $1000 camera in the first place
 
The japanese version is available on the gray market out here in Taiwan for $600usd or $20,000 NTD. I think the prices vary a lot depending were you are, so shop around.
 
jweeke, is that about 1,200,000 KRW? I thought I saw it for around 1,100,000 KRW on the internet, but I'm not sure how legitimate it is. Getting a camera with warranty will help you sleep better. In Korea, it's really hard for the store to make an exchange. Rather, they would like to service it. Korea isn't the best place for expensive electronic purchases. I'm in the same boat as you.

If you find a store with a decent price, please let me know. I'm looking to shop soon also.
 
goodgoings said:
jweeke, is that about 1,200,000 KRW? I thought I saw it for around 1,100,000 KRW on the internet, but I'm not sure how legitimate it is. Getting a camera with warranty will help you sleep better. In Korea, it's really hard for the store to make an exchange. Rather, they would like to service it. Korea isn't the best place for expensive electronic purchases. I'm in the same boat as you.

If you find a store with a decent price, please let me know. I'm looking to shop soon also.
Click to expand...

yeah korea's not the best, but there's places in seoul where whole city blocks are full of camera shops, and all you have to do is ask every seller until you find what you want.

best prices i found (in namdaemun):
1.13millionwon for export gh2 body
.95m for japanese body
1.03m for voigtlander

prices dont vary more than 20-30k from shop to shop. also, they're usually about 15% less than internet prices i've seen.
 
I have the Japanese version. If it means anything to you, the body is made in Japan, whereas (afaik) the US bodies are made in China.

Menus are in Japanese but it's not hard to understand what everything does with a basic understanding of Japanese.

There's no language hack available, there has been rumours of a tool to do it floating around but I'm still patiently waiting for that.

I got mine from Amazon Japan for around AU$1000 with a 14-42mm lens. It hadn't been released in Australia yet and considering the GH1 is still selling for around $1350 new, there's no way I'm gonna pay around $1500 and wait 6 months to get it! Although warranty isnt THAT much of an issue for me as I have friends in Japan (one works for Panasonic, incidentally) who can handle that for me if anything ever goes wrong. I don't know what COULD go wrong, the thing seems pretty good to me, but who knows.
 
Update: After this thinking about it I came up with a plan to buy some bodys and re-sell them. It turns out GH2's are sold out which also tells me that there is a chance that the Japanese stock is low out here.
 
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