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Ikegami HL-DV7W
Hello, I recently got offered a used Ikegami HL-DV7W with the DVCam deck from a friend of mine, and I am wondering if its worth purchasing for freelance work, since I do not have the funds to get into the HD workflows. can anyone please provide me a good review of this camera as well as its image quality for freelance work?
Thanks,
Nathan Cantu
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3 Replies
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What you have is essentially an HC-400 in a one-piece DVCAM configuration. The Ikegami HC-400 was the industrial flavor of the broadcast model HL-45, which I once owned.
It was a very nice camera – maybe better quality for the price than anything else.
Ikegami renders skin tones very nicely, has the ability to set looks (scene files) and handles fine detail very nicely without some of the over-sharpening/edge processing some other SD cameras did.
Did you get the owner’s handbook with it? Despite some…interesting…translations, there’s a lot of good stuff in there, as well as in the camera.
From what I remember (it’s been years) the “soft detail” menu item needs to be set to “on”, and this will yield a sharp, clean image without the above-mentioned edge over-enhancement.
Put good glass on it and you’ll have very nice SD images.
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Yes, It does include the owner’s manual with purchase. I have set up Ikegami HL-55s at a non profit radio station to allow them to web-cast concerts that were preformed in a venue, and the manual has some humorous English translations in it. Especially in the maintenance manuals.
Also, how does this Ike model preform under fluorescent light or uneven florescent lighting when using camera or portable lighting isn’t permitted (e.g. boxing matches in an auditorium with florescent lights only)?
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Like anything under fluoros, really. With the RGB “paint pots” on the side you can dial in a look and save it as a scene file.
Your problem is the light sources, and the fact that it’s all top-down light, not the camera.
It will do as well as anything under the circumstances.
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