Sony Corporation

Kanehiro Tada

Eiji Ohshima

Yasuo Nishida

Shuuji Moro

Ryuzo Ohta

In a new retractable lens barrel of a type wherein a movable barrel is mounted protrudably in an optical axis direction from a fixed barrel or a camera body and filming is possible when the movable barrel is in a protruded state and comprising a movable lens of a variable power and/or focusing system, a space formed when the movable barrel is protruded from the fixed barrel or camera body is made a space in which the movable lens is movable during filming and the casing of the iris unit and a lens holder of a fixed lens are formed integrally. Because the space in which the movable lens is movable during filming is used to accommodate the movable barrel when the camera is not being used and the movable barrel is retracted, the length of the retracted lens barrel in the front-rear direction can be made short. Also, because the casing of the iris unit and the lens holder of a fixed lens are formed integrally, the number of parts is reduced and the optical axes of different lens groups and the iris unit are not readily misaligned when the lens barrel is being assembled.

Lens barrel

A lens barrel is composed of a shaft located in a lens barrel parallel to the optical axis thereof, a movable lens frame installed in the lens barrel having a bearing to receive the shaft and holding a lens therein to be moved therewith along the direction of the optical axis via the bearing and the shaft, and a cantilever made from a elastic material of which one end is fixed to the bearing and another end is pressed to the shaft, the cantilever being extended along the direction of the optical axis. The cantilever may be a flat spring formed of synthetic resin.

An iris drive mechanism has two slidable diaphragms which are operatively connected with a motor through a lever arrangement which, for a given motor output shaft rotational speed moves the diaphragms slowly at their extreme positions wherein the aperture is small and large respectively, and more quickly at an intermediate stage. The slower movement when the aperture is small improves the F number resolution.

Iris drive mechanism

A solid-state still camera includes a detector for detecting how much track space is already occupied and producing a detector signal for every occupied track. A counter counts the detector signals and produces a counter signal representative of the number of occupied tracks. The solid-state still camera is also provided with a manually operable mode selector for selecting video recording mode from among a plurality of different modes, such as frame mode and field mode. An arithmetic circuit is associated with the counter to receive the counter signals therefrom. The arithmetic circuit is also connected to the mode selector to receive a selected mode indicative signal. The arithmetic circuit derives the number of pictures that can be taken based on the counter signal value and the selected mode indicative signal. The value derived by the arithmetic circuit is displayed on a visual display. Preferably, the solid-state still camera also includes an audio recording feature. The detector also detects the tracks occupied by recording audio signals. The indicator makes it possible to conveniently know the number of blank tracks available for taking pictures or recording audio sounds.

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Tokyo, Japan

Kanehiro Tada