Pros and Cons of buying Japanese GH2???

A

asingfield

Active member
I Live in Australia, meaning we get everything late.... one camera store said March 2011...:cry:
But the Japaness GH2 is looking very good ( can be posted here in 3-4 days and it's $1000.00 AUD), since i need a upgrade soon for other projects. I'm not that worried about the whole NTSC/PAL aspect side on things..
Questions....

Should i wait for the US release?
Is the language thing going to be a issue down the track?

Interested in everyone's thoughts

Cheers
 
If you can read Japanese it is not an issue. If you can't then it might be an issue. I couldn't imagine handing a Japanese camera to my wife and expecting her to shoot with it.
 
Well... it might be a problem if you dont know neither katakana nor chinese characters, but still... many options in the menu have their icons and you can always try to learn stuff from the english manual :) that's how Im rolling... Im learning the manual, I know some chinese characters (not too many though... ideograms for lens, light, things like that) and most of the time I just read icons... Still, I will try to learn katana especially for this purpose - many technical terms are taken from english and sounds similar: memory card = memorikado, lens - renzu, focus - fokasu. So, once you know katakana it's pretty easy I guess. And katakana contains just about 140 characters ~ learn 1 hour every evening and after 1 week you will be able to read =)
 
I am in New Zealand and am also waiting to pick up the GH2. It seems Panasonic NZ have no idea when it is coming but they think it won't be til next year.

As I will be in Australia over Christmas I have been trying to get a handle on when they think they are going to get it and yesterday had the following replies from retailers:

- "I just got off the phone to Panasonic Australia and they advised that they had no information on a release date for the GH-2"

- "Panasonic Australia have decided not to release this model until 2011"

- "Panasonic have informed us they will be available after Christmas"

- "Unfortunately at this stage the eta is to be advised, we are currently waiting for Panasonic to give us an indication"

- "GH2 model info was released this morning. AU$2399 (US$2324) for GH2 w 14-140 and AU$1699 (US$1645) for GH2 w 14-42. The only details we have is that it should be available in December"

So basically it looks like they have no clue whatsoever when they will be getting any. And at that price the US model is looking pretty damn good.

What are the disadvantages of getting an NTSC model in a PAL country?

If a new firmware does get released would it be possible to update to the PAL firmware?





 
One view rom the bunker.

I have ordered one from Japan on ebay. Should be here in three days. Decided to go this way for a couple of reasons. I love my GH13 but live HDMI on the GH2 is compelling and the picture looks insanely good. My wife and I shoot most family stuff in intelligent auto anyway but for work I shoot in Manual. I am sure I can figure manual settings out using the manual as I will be using manual lenses.

Waiting sucks when I have stuff to shoot early next year - a full album video shoot. I cannot yet afford the camera I would like so I will save for that in the mean time.

Not a reason to bite the bullet as there are no guarantees, but a firmware update may mean Vitilay has something to work with he he he. I read something about a blue channel bug - hmmmmmmmm they may try to fix that. Even if I am stuck with Japanese - it meets all my needs.

I am looking at an Epic lite later on next year or in 2012 and this will carry me over if the nanoflash works fine with it. As usual the advice given by guys like Barry is 'buy what you need'.
 
Sounds like getting a Japanese model is looking more likely. Vitaliy has just said that he is able to switch language to English.

So I can save approx. NZ$600 and get one now or wait till who knows when to get one from Australia.

Is PriceJapan the best place to get a japanese model from?

What is the story with warranty? What about dead pixels?
 
Your warranty will have to be all return to base. Suppliers and panasonic in NZ won't cover the warranty. I'm getting one from Japan myself when I head over there
 
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