Japanese EOS 7D?

Hi everyone,

I'm posting this question on behalf of a friend. She has recently purchased a grey-market 7D, and the original user manual appears to be a Japanese version (has a 'J' in the bottom right corner of the cover page). It also came with an English version of the manual, but this was supplied outside the shrink-wrap, an add-on.

This camera has only 2 (yes, TWO) menu languages! What I assume is Japanese, and English. Does this sound right? Would a 7D, destined for the domestic Japanese market, only come with two languages? Does anyone here have one they bought in Japan maybe? The serial number is 0410505xxx, if that is of any help.

Thanks in advance for any info you might shed on the matter.

There is a menu option that allows the use of many languages...at least on the one I played around with in Japan.

Rudi wrote in post #9662615
Hi everyone,

I'm posting this question on behalf of a friend. She has recently purchased a grey-market 7D, and the original user manual appears to be a Japanese version (has a 'J' in the bottom right corner of the cover page). It also came with an English version of the manual, but this was supplied outside the shrink-wrap, an add-on.

This camera has only 2 (yes, TWO) menu languages! What I assume is Japanese, and English. Does this sound right? Would a 7D, destined for the domestic Japanese market, only come with two languages? Does anyone here have one they bought in Japan maybe? The serial number is 0410505xxx, if that is of any help.

Thanks in advance for any info you might shed on the matter.

All the cameras are japanese Seriously, not a single chinese part anymore.

My MKIII (american "version") came with three manuals, japanese, english, and spanish (might have included french in the spanish one). As for menu stuff, just update the firmware and it should give you other options if you really need them... most likely having english is enough.

i doubt they go to the effort to put LESS language options on Japanese domestic models - all Canon menu's i've ever seen have the whole gamut of languages.

I can't offer a solution but that's very odd. I can't say I've heard anything like this before.

I also find this a bit strange.. Maybe a firmware update might help..

There is a certain model of the 7D that only contains 2 languages. English and Japanese.

There was a guy who imported the 7D from Asia and he didn't know that his 7D only had English and Japanese, since he was French he had a hard time figuring it out in English so he decided to sell the body, he even provided sample photos that when selecting the language it only contained English and Japanese.

I'm seriously having difficulty getting my head around this..

All Canon EOS cameras come out of the same factory right?? Language and menu are firmware controlled?? Wouldn't all 7Ds be loaded with the same firmware??

I doubt very much that Canon would load a different firmware version depending on where the camera is being shipped..

It seems that there are indeed different regional versions of the 7D, and they have different languages loaded. I have confirmed this independently via two people:

1) with someone who also has a Japanese model like my friend's, with only Japanese and English loaded, and;
2) another person who has a different version of the 7D, purchased in India (their 7D has a different set of languages to the "western" version of the 7D).

This is all news to me, but apparently regional variations do exist. I have no idea what will happen after a firmware upgrade.

I had bout the "KISS N" (XT) in Japan, and it had all the same langauges as the US based model did.

I find it odd a NEW 7D only has 2 language settings...Very odd.

Perhaps they're starting to try and prevent grey market sales? When I was in Japan last year I heard rumblings about some manufacturers selling Japanese only copies in Japan though I don't know why they'd bother, perhaps Japanese prices are cheaper than European prices but they are way more expensive than North American prices so I didn't buy one there.

I thought the ones coming out of Japan had Japanese and Engrish

Perfect_10 wrote in post #9667361
I thought the ones coming out of Japan had Japanese and Engrish

LOL Priceless!

Well, I bought my 7D from Japan and I too can only select either Japanese or English. This interestingly does not depend on the firmware, because after upgrading to the latest firmware (which, according to the description included about 33 languages) it still has only these two languages.

afalco wrote in post #9672570
Well, I bought my 7D from Japan and I too can only select either Japanese or English. This interestingly does not depend on the firmware, because after upgrading to the latest firmware (which, according to the description included about 33 languages) it still has only these two languages.

Now *that* is interesting! I was wondering if the languages would appear after a firmware upgrade... it looks like this is somehow hard-wired into the camera.