The Nikon Z7 is a great camera, with the upcoming firmware update(s) it’s going to be even greater, and I won’t sing its praises here, others on the Internet are and have been doing it much better than I could hope to.
There is one thing, though, that bothers me: supported languages. And this is what this article is about, so that you can avoid making the same mistakes as I.
So, I bought my first Z7 mid-November 2018, just in time for my December photo trip to Brittany. Now, what is the first thing you do when you receive a new digital camera these days, after charging the battery, that is? You open the menus and start configuring it to make it more your own, and make it work the way you want.
And as soon as I started doing that, I discovered that the menus on my Z7 were in English and Chinese. Only.
Now, that doesn’t really bother me personally, as I’m used to configuring all my cameras in English, which is like a second native tongue to me, and which makes it a lot easier as most of the camera-related content found on the Web is in English anyway, so having the camera set up in English already makes it easier to try out the various tips I may stumble upon, but... but... when the day to resell it comes, what do I do, in France, surrounded by French-speaking, Italian-speaking, German-speaking, Spanish-speaking potential customers?
Obviously, it is going to be a problem.
So, I think “OK, my bad, I should have checked/asked, I’m not going to return it now as with scarce inventories, there won’t be time to obtain another one before I go to Brittany, I will procure another one later and resell this one with English only, hoping to take advantage of the fact that it will still be a very new camera to find a buyer that will be OK with English only...”
With a couple of weeks to spare before my trip, I chanced and ordered a second Z7 from the FNAC marketplace vendor Infinity Pro, which claimed to have the camera in stock... but finally decided to reimburse my3,431 euros as they could not procure the Z7...! The claim was false, obviously.
Not daunted (how stupid can one be?), I ordered a third Z7 from the E-global Central Belgium online vendor. I waited days and days, no one answering my emails, no one giving me any news (in spite of having promptly debited my VISA card!), and suddenly I was informed that my 3,018 euros were going to be reimbursed!
Considering the obvious difficulties to obtain this camera, I decided to wait until after Christmas, and so on January 7, I ordered my fourth Z7 from UK online vendor Progadgets KCS. UK vendors have very good prices because they source their products from Hong Kong, and there must be some special customs arrangement between the UK and their former colony, so that goods may enter the European Union without paying VAT, or something like that... Better hurry if one wants to take advantage of this, because after the Brexit, it will be too late...
Anyway, this time I had done my homework and asked about supported languages. That vendor had been very reactive and had listed five or six languages in their email, so I thought I was safe, but when I received the camera and began to configure it, I discovered that, in fact, what I had mistaken for the beginning of a long list of languages, was in fact the full list. And so, there was, in addition to English and Chinese, Dutch and Portuguese, which was already an improvement, but no German, no Italian, no Spanish, etc.
In other words, I was not really better off. I had to send it back, and I am expecting reimbursement (this time, of 3,031 euros) as I write this.
I have now sworn that the Progadgets KCS thing was going to be my last mistake, and therefore I have sent emails all over the place, asking vendors for an EXHAUSTIVE list of the supported language, and this allowed me to find out that Nikon have implemented really strange policies regarding the languages supported in the menus of the Z cameras: the reduced cost copies that come into Europe via Hong Kong are usually only in English and Chinese, and some also have Dutch, Portuguese and some strange languages that look like Hindu or Burmese...
Of course, I can always go to a “legitimate” Nikon dealership in France. Only today, I received an answer from Objectif Bastille, a well-known retailer in Paris (where I bought, in fact, my Z-mount 35mm f/1.8 S lens), detailing the supported languages, and they’re all there: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, English, French, Spanish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serb, Finnish, etc. In other words, all the languages I have, for example, on my D850. But then, the price of the Z7 plus an FTX adapter is 3,850 euros, which is quite a different deal...
At this point, my last hope is some obscure retailer in the Canary Islands, but they seem to keep strange business hours and I am still waiting for them to answer my query about the supported languages. If that fails, I will have no choice but to pay full price.
So, in conclusion, if you see some great buying opportunities on the Internet, make sure you ask the right questions and obtain the right answers in writing before you let them take your money...!
EDIT: After Progadgets KCS, I was once more taken in by inaccurate representations from an online vendor, this time Duke Fotografia in Las Palmas, Canary Island (Spain) as, in spite of my having asked (repeatedly!) the very specific question about languages supported in the menus), I was still sent a Z7 which only had English, French, Spanish and Portuguese...! I had to send it back once again, and then I decided to go to a very official Nikon authorized reseller in the city of Lyons, and actually look at the “Languages” item in the Setup menu: sure enough, dozens of European languages were listed, just as on my D850. I bought that Z7, which is going to be THE ONE for me —at last!
