YES Productions Relies on Ikegami Cameras for Cooking Shows

Being nationally renowned for a specialty is an important asset for any production company, and New Orleans PBS station WYES, along with their sister company YES Productions, have made their mark as a top spot for shooting cooking shows. To ensure that they’re flexible as well as specialized, YES has specified three Ikegami HDK-77EC cameras for their expansive new Studio A.

The new HDK-77EC HD Native Multi-Format CMOS cameras bring YES’ inventory to 23 total Ikegami HD cameras, many of which are onboard their two 53-foot expando mobile production units.

“Whether we’re shooting on the road or in the studio, the cameras we want to work with are Ikegami,” says Jim Moriarty, VP and General Manager of YES Productions. “We’ve grown accustomed to their superior imagery and customer service, so when it came time to buy cameras for the new studio, Ikegami was the obvious choice.”

A 4,000 sq. ft. facility, YES’ flagship studio is quickly establishing itself as one of the region’s elite video production centers. One genre of production keeping the facility busy is cooking shows, which have been a specialty at YES for over 25 years of working with renowned chefs such as Paul Prudhomme, John Besh, and Justin Wilson.

“Camera choice is critical when you’re producing cooking shows,” Moriarty explains. “Viewers can’t taste the food’s flavors or smell the aromas, but they can share in what the chef is seeing. Ikegami cameras have routinely blown our production crews away with their ability to visually reproduce what’s going on in a world-class kitchen: you have lots of silver, chrome, aluminum, blacks, rich texture, depth, and color.”

“Performance-wise, our newest Ikegami HDK-77EC cameras meet our high expectations and surpass them,” continues Moriarty. “They’re equipped with Ikegami’s CMOS imaging sensors, which are providing us with outstanding colorimetry and dynamic resolution. For public affairs and entertainment shows, which often call for sets with backlit Duratrans backgrounds depicting cityscapes, we depend on the HDK-77EC to display intricate detail onscreen. It’s as if the talent is actually downtown overlooking the city, instead of being in a studio.”

Designed with three advanced 2/3-inch 2.5 megapixel CMOS image sensors, Ikegami HDK-77EC cameras provide 1080i and 720p HD video quality, with native interlace and progressive readout modes. As a result, YES has the flexibility to meet the varied needs of their clientele.

“The Ikegami HDK-77EC’s multiformat capabilities are invaluable to us,” Moriarty says. “Networks appreciate knowing that whether they’re shooting in 1080i or 720p, that they’re going to come away with their footage ready to go, without having to convert it later on.”

With the careful engineering that goes into all Ikegami systems, and YES’ long experience with the attentive support that backs it up, Jim Moriarty and his team know they have a camera they can count on in the HDK-77EC. “The typical cooking program calls for two shows a day, daily, for weeks on end,” he says. “The look has to match from hour to hour, episode to episode. That’s why YES continues to rely on Ikegami.”