Minolta Company, Ltd.

Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Kazuhiko Yukawa

Masataka Hamada

Hiroshi Ootsuka

Yoshihiro Hara

Hiroshi Ueda

Tokuji Ishida

Toshio Norita

Norihiko Akamatsu

Kenji Ishibashi

Akihiko Fujino

Kohtaro Hayashi

Shigeto Ohmori

Masayuki Miyazawa

Tetsuro Kanbara

Yasuo Maeda

Keiji Tamai

Fumiaki Ishito

Toshiro Higuchi

Masatoshi Yoneyama

Tomonori Satoh

Minoru Kurosawa

Yoshimitsu Fukuda

Hiroaki Kubo

Masahito Niikawa

Toshihiro Hamamura

Yasuhiro Morimoto

Tsuyoshi Kishimoto

Takeru Butsuzaki

A camera is provided with: a detector for detecting a shake amount of the apparatus with respect to an object at an interval; a calculator for calculating a shake speed and a shake acceleration rate based on detected shake amounts, and calculates an estimative shake amount based on a calculated shake speed, a calculated shake acceleration rate, and a coefficient k (0&#x3c;k&#x3c;1) on an assumption that a shake is uniformly accelerated motion, the coefficient k being a multiplier for the calculated shake acceleration rate; and a corrector for executing a shake correction in accordance with a calculated estimative shake amount.

Apparatus capable of shake estimation

A digital camera comprises a camera body and an image sensing unit. The image sensing unit is provided with a taking lens and an image sensing device for taking images and with an optical viewfinder. The camera body is provided with a controller for controlling the camera, signal processing circuits for processing signals from the image sensing device, a display device for displaying images taken and an interface for recording images taken onto a memory card. The display device serves as a viewfinder. In taking a image, the controller performs an AF control of the taking lens. When power supply to the camera is started, and when the display device is activated, the controller sets the taking lens at a predetermined focus position where in-focus condition is obtained for distant to close-range views, so that blurred images are not displayed on the display device.

Digital camera having controller for reducing occurrences of blur in displayed images

At power-on, a digital camera starts to operate with a display unit off (state S ). At a subsequent half shutter press of a shutter button, a quick return mirror is flipped down and phase difference AF is performed with live view display off (state S ). At a subsequent full press of the shutter button, the digital camera enters an image capture operation. With a quick return mirror in the up position, a focusing lens is moved to its in-focus, front focus and rear focus positions, at each of which contrast in an AF area of predetermined partial portion of an image is obtained for comparison to select a position of the focusing lens with maximum contrast (state S ). Then, image data is obtained and recorded on a memory card (state S ). With the above processing, the digital camera can perform autofocusing, as circumstances demand, by a contrast AF method.

Digital camera

An elastic surface wave gyroscope includes two transducers attached on a piezoelectric substrate to generate elastic surface waves having different frequencies on the piezoelectric substrate, and two pair of reflectors for reflecting the different elastic surface waves toward the generators to produce two different standing waves, and another pair of reflectors for reflecting an elastic surface wave caused by a Coriolis force to produce a third standing wave, and a detector for detecting an electric signal corresponding to the third standing wave. This gyroscope has a high detection sensitivity.

Elastic surface wave gyroscope

An apparatus has a member to be driven, an actuator for driving the member, a position detector and a controller. The actuator drives the member to move by an amount proportional to a given number of pulses. The position detector detects a position of the member in predetermined detection steps. The controller determines in steps smaller than the predetermined detection steps a target position up to which the member is to be moved. Then, it controls the actuator up to a detection-step position before the target position by closed-loop control in accordance with a detection result from the detector. Further, it controls the actuator from the detection step position to the target position by open-loop control.

Apparatus having a driven member and a drive controller therefor

In an image detection system having within one-chip IC an area sensor, an area sensor driver for driving the area sensor and an area sensor output processing circuit for processing an output of the area sensor, the charges accumulated in necessary pixel areas of the area sensor are transferred at a transfer clock of a speed at which A/D conversion may be performed by an A/D converter incorporated in a microcomputer and are read out in image blur detection, and the charges accumulated in unnecessary pixel areas are transferred at a high-speed transfer clock and dumped.

Image detection system

A shake correcting device of a camera is provided with: a detector for detecting a shake of the camera relative to an object cyclically; a calculator for calculating a degree of variation of a plurality of detection results of the detector, and calculating a detection precision based on a calculated degree of variation; and a corrector for executing a shake correction of the camera based on a detection precision calculated by the calculator.

Shake detecting/correcting device for use in an optical apparatus and a

In a flash light amount control device capable of operating according to multiple methods, the flash light control method alternates according to the detected AF mode setting, the camera panning status, or the reliability of the detected object distance. For example, if AF lock is on, control is performed by flash light adjustment, but if AF lock is not on, control is performed by flashmatic. If panning is performed after AF lock, the method of control alternates between flash light adjustment and flashmatic in response to the amount of panning movement.

Flash light amount controlling apparatus

A focus detector amplifies a plurality of sets of output signals from a plurality of photoelectric transfer element arrays by the most preferable amplifying mode and focuses a focus of an optical lens system on a desired object among a plurality of objects corresponding to the photoelectric transfer element arrays by selecting a method for deciding a defocus among a nearest position priority method, a lateral direction priority method and a reliability priority method responding to a condition of the objects.

Focus detector

A single-lens reflex camera comprises a taking lens having a zooming optical system, a finder whose angle of view is determined according to a focal length of the taking lens, and an operation member which is manually operated. In the single-lens reflex camera, the focal length of the taking lens is changed by driving the zooming optical system, and the zooming operation is controlled in response to an operation of the operation member so that the focal length of the taking lens is changed in the wide-angle direction by a predetermined amount. An angle of view corresponding to that which is seen before the focal length is changed is displayed within the finder.

Camera

A camera includes a CCD line sensor divided into a plurality of blocks and a plurality of monitors provided near each of the divided blocks and sensing the amount of received light corresponding to each block. The storage of charge in each block of the CCD is controlled based on the amount of the light received by the monitor. Each block corresponds to each part of an object in a finder of the camera.

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Sakai, Japan

Kazuhiko Yukawa