Official: Canon EOS M3 and It's Not Coming To North America

[MrJ]

Won't the menus and such when purchased from japan be in Japanese? Is there a way to change them to English?

 

[Tinky]

As I recall mine were in English, but it's dead easy. Go to the canon website and find the english manual, use that to navigate the menus by position. Change it. Dead easy.

 

[cliffwang]

Won't the menus and such when purchased from japan be in Japanese? Is there a way to change them to English?

I don't think there is a way to change the language for JP model. Most Japanese model electronics doesn't have English menu. That's why I don't buy Japanese model electronics even thought the Japanese model is cheaper nowadays(because of the exchange rate). The only Japanese model electronic we have is Sony RX100 because that's for my wife.

 

[Tinky]

for japan version also read hong kong market. as an owner of a japanese m1 and previous owner of japanese market rebels... they have english as an option.

 

[vjlex]

Won't the menus and such when purchased from japan be in Japanese? Is there a way to change them to English?

I don't think there is a way to change the language for JP model. Most Japanese model electronics doesn't have English menu. That's why I don't buy Japanese model electronics even thought the Japanese model is cheaper nowadays(because of the exchange rate). The only Japanese model electronic we have is Sony RX100 because that's for my wife.

Sorry, that's not true. I've owned at least 7 different Canon bodies, all Japanese versions, and they change between Japanese and English fine. They only difference in language they have is that it is only 2 languages as opposed to the European and American releases which feature over a dozen different languages. But at least for the time I've been here, the Japanese version does have the ability to change to English.

I will say that in my early days in Japan, some of the equipment I bought such as the Japanese Sony HDCam and the Japanese HTC Hermes did not have the built in ability to switch language, and I had to find hacks and workarounds to do it. But I've never had a problem with finding English menus on my Canon cameras.

English menus won't be a problem on the Japanese M3. If you need a language other than English or Japanese though, your best bet is to get the European version I think.

 

[Vivid Color]

Won't the menus and such when purchased from japan be in Japanese? Is there a way to change them to English?

I don't think there is a way to change the language for JP model. Most Japanese model electronics doesn't have English menu. That's why I don't buy Japanese model electronics even thought the Japanese model is cheaper nowadays(because of the exchange rate). The only Japanese model electronic we have is Sony RX100 because that's for my wife.

Sorry, that's not true. I've owned at least 7 different Canon bodies, all Japanese versions, and they change between Japanese and English fine. They only difference in language they have is that it is only 2 languages as opposed to the European and American releases which feature over a dozen different languages. But at least for the time I've been here, the Japanese version does have the ability to change to English.

I will say that in my early days in Japan, some of the equipment I bought such as the Japanese Sony HDCam and the Japanese HTC Hermes did not have the built in ability to switch language, and I had to find hacks and workarounds to do it. But I've never had a problem with finding English menus on my Canon cameras.

English menus won't be a problem on the Japanese M3. If you need a language other than English or Japanese though, your best bet is to get the European version I think.

If the M3 is like the M, you shouldn't have any problem getting an English-language menu. A friend of mine and I each bought a gray-market EOS-M a few months ago when it was on an eBay fire sale. We each bought from the same company on the same day. Mine came with an English language menu up and running. Hers came with the Japanese menu. We put our two cameras next to one another so we could figure out where the language setting was on her camera. Once we did that, it was very easy to change the menu on her camera from Japanese to English. If both of our cameras had been set to Japanese, we would've probably just gone online to find photos of the menu options. That said, I do seem to recall that there were not as many language options on her model as there was on mine but we each had the language we needed.

 

[Jamesy]

Hey Jamesy. Good man I'm interested in doing the same myself. Could you tell, from the translation, when Amazon.jp expect to start shipping?

On the Google translated Amazon.co.jp page it says "Release date of this product is March 31, 2015.
Right now it is in the reservation."

Amazon stated delivery dates as follows:

Delivery Date: Wednesday, 2015/04/01 - Friday, 2015/04/03

 

[boogaloo]

James thanks for your advice. I have preordered too from Japan and will let you all know how it goes. I figure that even if there is a problem the evf cost saving is worth it.

 

[Zv]

Won't the menus and such when purchased from japan be in Japanese? Is there a way to change them to English?

I don't think there is a way to change the language for JP model. Most Japanese model electronics doesn't have English menu. That's why I don't buy Japanese model electronics even thought the Japanese model is cheaper nowadays(because of the exchange rate). The only Japanese model electronic we have is Sony RX100 because that's for my wife.

Sorry, that's not true. I've owned at least 7 different Canon bodies, all Japanese versions, and they change between Japanese and English fine. They only difference in language they have is that it is only 2 languages as opposed to the European and American releases which feature over a dozen different languages. But at least for the time I've been here, the Japanese version does have the ability to change to English.

I will say that in my early days in Japan, some of the equipment I bought such as the Japanese Sony HDCam and the Japanese HTC Hermes did not have the built in ability to switch language, and I had to find hacks and workarounds to do it. But I've never had a problem with finding English menus on my Canon cameras.

English menus won't be a problem on the Japanese M3. If you need a language other than English or Japanese though, your best bet is to get the European version I think.

If the M3 is like the M, you shouldn't have any problem getting an English-language menu. A friend of mine and I each bought a gray-market EOS-M a few months ago when it was on an eBay fire sale. We each bought from the same company on the same day. Mine came with an English language menu up and running. Hers came with the Japanese menu. We put our two cameras next to one another so we could figure out where the language setting was on her camera. Once we did that, it was very easy to change the menu on her camera from Japanese to English. If both of our cameras had been set to Japanese, we would've probably just gone online to find photos of the menu options. That said, I do seem to recall that there were not as many language options on her model as there was on mine but we each had the language we needed.

I've bought all my gear in Japan as I live here and Canon has always had an English language option for cameras (AFAIK). You just need to navigate to the wrench icon and find the right place. Just download the English manual to figure out where it is.

FYI - You can spot the language option easily by the following kanji 日本語 (Japanese). The first two characters are really easy to spot in a menu.