[JerryLime]

I noticed the price of K-30 becomes more and more attractive now.However, I am a Chinese user. Does anybody know if the K-30 bought in US support Chinese?

[Adam]

Mine doesn't, unfortunately- in fact, it doesn't have any Asian languages whatsoever.

[JerryLime]

Thank you, Adam.Pentax changes its multi-language support policy after Ricoh coming.

[rawr]

Strange - so in the K-30 setup menu [Menu, Setup 1] there is no Chinese or even Japanese? In the K-30 PDF manual I have, whilst it doesn't specifiy which languages are supported, it shows Asian [Chinese?] characters in the Language menu entry (p-204, p252).

But I notice that on the Pentax USA K-30 web site they say:

Language Support
English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Greek, Russian

Weird. Why bother not including Asian languages? The K-5 has about 18 languages built in, including I think 4 Asian character sets.

EDIT: The Pentax Australia K-30 web site shows Asian languages, making the Pentax USA situation even stranger:

Language Support
English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Greek, Russian, Korean, Traditional/Simplified Chinese, Japanese

[JerryLime]

Maybe because of Ricoh.....

Strange - so in the K-30 setup menu [Menu, Setup 1] there is no Chinese or even Japanese? In the K-30 PDF manual I have, whilst it doesn't specifiy which languages are supported, it shows Asian [Chinese?] characters in the Language menu entry (p-204, p252).

But I notice that on the Pentax USA K-30 web site they say:



Weird. Why bother not including Asian languages? The K-5 has about 18 languages built in, including I think 4 Asian character sets.

[rawr]

Maybe because of Ricoh.....

You think they don't like Chinese-Americans?
They seem to have no problem with Chinese-Australians or Korean-Australians... Puzzling.

[Lance Tsai]

Jerry, good to see you here.

When I bought K-01, I had same question. Pentax US listed on website that K-01 supports Asian languages before I got K-01. After I got it, I found K-01 did not support Asian languages. So I asked Pentax US about it, they did not know that in the beginning(what a shame). I keep bothering them and they change specifications but leave the question to me. They should understand their product and responsible for their customers. Is it difficult to add Asian languages in firmware update?

[rawr]

Is it difficult to add Asian languages in firmware update?

Hmm. Perhaps the solution may be that when you update your firmware for the K-30 (inevitably there will be an update), simply be sure to download your firmware direct from Pentax JP rather than the Pentax USA web site ...

[lister6520]

Strange - I've just checked my K-30 for languages. It has five options, one is English while the other four look to my untrained eye similar to Chinese characters but could be Japanese or something else.

I got my K-30 from an eBay seller in the UK.

Here is a photo of the Language selection menu for those who can read it:

[JerryLime]

Yes, the last two options are traditional and simplified Chinese.
My question is if the K-30 bought in US has the last two language options.

Strange - I've just checked my K-30 for languages. It has five options, one is English while the other four look to my untrained eye similar to Chinese characters but could be Japanese or something else.

I got my K-30 from an eBay seller in the UK.

Here is a photo of the Language selection menu for those who can read it:

[rawr]

Strange - I've just checked my K-30 for languages. It has five options, one is English while the other four look to my untrained eye similar to Chinese characters but could be Japanese or something else.

Interesting.

By some chance, do the available language options on your camera change according to the 'World Time' and/or 'Hometown' or 'Destination' settings in the camera menu [Setup 1 > World Time]? See p-207-208 of the K-30 manual.

Those settings change the video output format of the camera, so it's not impossible that they may also alter the available menu language options...

[lister6520]

.......
By some chance, do the available language options on your camera change according to the 'World Time' and/or 'Hometown' or 'Destination' settings in the camera menu [Setup 1 > World Time]? See p-207-208 of the K-30 manual.


...

Just tried it, but no it does not change the displayed language options. I changed both the 'home' and the 'destination' time but it made no difference to the language options shown. I also tried switching off/on to possibly refresh the menu but still the same four languages.

I checked the box, it has those four languages plus German and another two western languages which I cannot identify (possibly Spanish and Portugese but I'm just guessing here)


correction: when I mention setting the time I of course meant setting the time zone. I tried a few, in different continents.

[rawr]

Just tried it, but no it does not change the displayed language options.

Aha. Thanks. It was worth a shot