West Electric Co., Ltd.

Akitoshi Morioka

Hiroshi Iwata

Tsunemi Yoshino

Toshitsugu Kashihara

Tetsuo Yamaoka

Kunio Tsuji

Toshinori Hayata

Naofumi Aoki

Hiroshi Watanabe

Naoyuki Furutsuka

A motor-driven film winder for a camera has an internal gear portion (5a) fixed to a motor (1), one or two step-shaped planet gears (7), (8) having first gears (7a), (8a) to mesh with a pinion gear (4) driven by the motor and the internal gear portion (5a) and second gears (7b), (8b) having a larger diameter than first gears (7a), (8b), and engaging with an internal gear (11a) provided on inside wall of the take-up spool (11), whereby rotation of the motor is transmitted to the take-up spool (11) with largely reduced speed of rotation and largely multiplied torque.

Motor-driven film winder

A photographic lens device with a built-in electronic aperture-stop control system or mechanism comprising a step motor and an aperture-stop setting device which are spaced apart from each other by a suitable distance in the direction of the optical axis of the photographic lens system and are coupled to each other through a coupling means. In one embodiment, the aperture-stop control system can be incorporated in the lens device simply by slightly enlarging the diameter of the lens device or barrel without increasing its axial length because of full possible use of a heretofore unused dead space available in the lens device.

Photographic lens device having a step motor mounted on the lens barrel

So far, the windows for displaying the number of frames exposed, a film speed, an aperture, a shutter speed and the like have been located at various positions on a camera body, but according to the present invention such photographic information can be displayed at the same place in the vicinity of a viewfinder or in the field of view thereof by a display device comprising an electro-optical display unit and a display information selection means adapted to cause the display unit to display the desired information.

Photographic information display device

A focus state indicator for a camera is provided such that the photographer may know a focus state in accordance with electrical signals respectively corresponding to the lens position in the previous focusing operation and a distance between a camera and a subject to be photographed. A circuit is arranged to generate a differential signal between the output electrical signals. The alarm operation of an alarm element is continuously changed between focused and out of focused states in accordance with the differential signal, so that the photographer can know the focus state.

Focus state indicator

A photographic equipment provided with a focal-length sensing means for sensing the focal length of a photographic lens mounted on a camera body and generating the electrical output signal representative of the detected focal length and a beam-angle control means responsive to the output signal from the focal-length sensing means for changing, in response to the detected focal length, the beam angle of an electronic flash unit mounted on the camera body.

Photographic equipment

Image focusing device especially adapted for use in single-lens reflex cameras. A light-beam emission or projection means is incorporated in each interchangeable photographic lens in such a way that the direction of the light beam emitted or projected therefrom can be varied in response to the axial displacement of a lens group for focusing an object. The light rays which are reflected from the object and pass through the photographic lens along and in the vicinity of its optical axis are intercepted by a photodetection means disposed within a camera body, whereby whether or not the photographic lens is sharply focused at the object can be detected.

Device for detecting sharp focusing

A photographing lens, which is to be mounted on a camera in an interchangeable manner is provided with a focus-informing means, which informs the photographer of focussings of the photographing lens during manual focussing operation thereof by buzzer or by small lamp, thereby enabling to provide a semi-automatic focussing for a conventional camera body without provision of an automatic focus adjusting means.

Photographing lens system with focus informing means

A camera in which a supertelephotographic lens system and a standard photographic lens system are arranged within a camera body and a standard viewfinder system and a supertelephotographic viewfinder system are so arranged that an operator can view an image of a subject through the same eyepiece window in either the standard or supertelephotographic mode. In addition, a control means is provided for controlling the use of a built-in electronic flash depending upon the selected mode and more particularly for inhibiting the use of the flash in the case of the supertelephotographic mode.

Camera selectively settable to either standard photographic mode or

A camera capable of standard and close-up exposures in which mounted in a single camera body are a light source for illuminating a minute subject, a close-up viewing optical system, a close-up optical system for exposing the minute subject at a magnified scale, a flash-light source, a standard viewing optical system such as an inverted Galilean finder, and a standard optical system including a standard lens for standard photography.

Camera capable of standard and close-up exposures

A camera which has a macro-photographic optical system for taking the magnified picture of a minute object or specimen, a first viewfinder system for permitting to view the magnified image of the object or specimen in the case of macro-photography, an illumination source for illuminating the object or specimen in the case of macro-photography, a normal or standard photographic optical system for taking the standard picture of a subject or object, a second viewfinder system such as an inverted Galilean finder used in the case of standard photography and an electronic flash. The selection of the macro-photographic mode or the standard photographic mode can be accomplished only by shifting a single optical element; that is, a reflecting mirror mounted in a mirror box. The camera has such a superior feature that the camera is very simple in construction yet capable of highly effective results in practice while in the case of macro-photography, a specimen can be clearly viewed and sharply focused.

Camera with macro-photographic system

In a camera equipped with both a standard lens and a telephoto lens which may be arbitrarily selected for exposures by manipulating a first control knob, a focusing device is provided which selects the focusing ranges or depths of field of the telephoto lens by a second control knob only in the case of the photography with the telephoto lens.

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Akitoshi Morioka