Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Olympus Corporation

Olympus Optical

Kazutoshi Shiratori

Yasuo Sasaki

Toshihiro Nakao

Tamotsu Koiwai

Akihiko Hashimoto

Hiroshi Miyajima

Tomoki Funakubo

Satoshi Watanabe

Tomoaki Sato

Yasuo Yamazaki

Tetsuo Miyasaka

Tokuo Shimizu

Kazunari Tokuda

Masaki Nagao

Mitsuo Kawazoe

Hitoshi Shirai

Akifumi Kabeya

Masaru Ikemachi

Yu Sato

Takashi Kodama

Kiyoshi Tosaka

Hiroyoshi Watanabe

Hiroshi Aoki

Masayuki Fujii

All members of a lens-implement are arranged in a rectangular space of a main lens frame. A lens prism is fixed, three movable lens frames for zoom and focusing inserted the two guide shafts are arranged, and a image capturing lens is fixed top-to-bottom seriatim occupying the horizontal &#x2154; portion of the rectangular space, and the image capturing device is arranged at foot portion. A zoom motor is arranged at the back of the lens prism, and a zoom shaft cam, a diaphragm/shutter, a focusing ultrasonic linear motor, and a magnetic sensor are arranged along the lens frames.

Encoder, lens-implement and digital camera

In a vibration wave linear motor, a coupled driving contacting parts are respectively provided on the top and the bottom of a vibrator unit, and 2 upper and lower guide shafts which contact concave parts of the coupled driving contacting parts are supported by erecting parts of a supporting part. The lower guide shaft is pressed upward by spiral springs, so that the two guide shafts press and sandwich the vibrator. Alternating current voltages having different phases are applied to the vibrator unit, whereby the vibrator unit generates a vibration wave to generate elliptical rotation vibrations in the driving contacting parts. As a result, the vibrator, and the two guide shafts and the supporting part make a relative move in the shaft direction. Either the guide shafts or the vibrator is fixed, and the other is linked to an object to be driven.

Vibration wave linear motor

A vibrator of a vibration wave linear motor comprises two and one driving contacting parts respectively on top and bottom surfaces. A first guide member contacts the two driving contacting parts on the top surface, and both ends of a second guide member are pressed upward by spiral springs, and pressing forces are applied respectively between the driving contacting parts and the first and the second guide members. The three driving contacting parts convert elliptical vibrations, which are generated by applying a voltage to a vibrator unit, into driving force, whereby the vibrator self-runs in a direction indicated by a bidirectional arrow d with reference to the first and the second guide members. The self-running of the vibrator is conveyed, via a pin member and an engaging protruding part, to the lens frame, which then slides.

The present invention provides a bar code scanning device that is compatible, in terms of communication and data, with information equipment conforming to PCMCIA standards, that is mounted in a card housing of a compact flash card size, and that has a laser beam scanning section integrated thereinto and which applies a scanning beam to an interior of the card housing through a window to obtain bar code information from light obtained when the scanning beam from the window is reflected.

Bar code scanning device

A viewfinder unit in a camera has a viewfinder objective optical system that contributes to formation of an object image. The camera viewfinder unit comprises an inversion optical system composed of a first prism and a second prism both providing an object image formed in the vicinity of a field mask by a viewfinder objective optical system in the form of a correct image and then guiding the object image to an eyepiece lens, a center of a first reflector plane of the second prism associated with a center of a viewfinder field and a periphery of the first reflector plane thereof associated with an outside of the viewfinder field, each of which is made by coating the first reflector plane with a translucent half mirror, and an LCD located at a position dependent on the first reflector plane of the second prism, which is optically equivalent to a position of image formation in a viewfinder objective optical system, opposed to the center and periphery of the first reflector surface, and designed to display viewfinder information.

Viewfinder unit in a camera

A patrone loading mechanism of a camera for loading a patrone into a patrone chamber of a camera body by sliding the patrone in the direction at a right angle to the axis thereof is disclosed. The mechanism includes a patrone cover, an urging device comprising a patrone ejecting spring which urges the loaded patrone toward the direction for ejecting out of the camera and a patrone ejecting plate, a pawl which is locked with the patrone ejecting plate at a predetermined position when the patrone is loaded, a cam lever for undoing locking of the pawl by driving a hook plate regardless of the position of the patrone cover, and a take-up fork supported in such a manner that it moves in and out of a fork gear by a sliding of a fork plate which moves with the patrone cover.

Patrone loading mechanism of camera

A camera having a lens shutter mechanism in accordance with the present invention comprises sectors lying in a lens frame and forming a predetermined exposure aperture, a drive ring for opening and closing the sectors, a high-speed sector opening lever and a low-speed sector opening lever which drive the drive ring through an interlock lever, a plurality of springs having different strengths and constraining the high-speed sector opening lever and low-speed sector opening lever, a sector closing lever for driving the high-speed sector opening lever and low-speed sector opening lever in a direction causing the sectors to close, a mode changing member for changing shutter speeds by selecting whether both or either of the high-speed sector opening lever and low-speed sector opening lever should be driven, a charge cam gear for resetting the shutter mechanism to an initial position after exposure is completed, and a groove bored along the optical axis in a camera body and designed to guide the drive ring along the optical axis when the lens frame collapses and to restrain the drive ring from rotating about the optical axis after the lens frame completes collapsing. Only a minimum number of required members are disposed in a lens frame and the remaining members are arranged in a camera body. This results in a compact camera.

Camera having a lens shutter mechanism

A Patrone according to the present invention comprises a spool that winds film in the form of a roll between two flanges thereof, and a Patrone body for storing said spool so that the spool can rotate freely. The spool is made of a shading material. The distal part of the film is provided with a leader whose width is equal to or smaller than the dimension between the two flanges and which winds round the outer circumference of film wound about the spool by at least one turn. The leader may also be formed of or include a shading material.

Patrone

A zoom lens-barrel assembly includes a differential cam frame which is moved in an axial direction together with a movable barrel and is rotated around an optical axis. Lens holding frames are cam-linked with the differential cam frame. The positions of the lens holding frames relative to the cam frame are changed by the rotation of the cam frame.

Zoom-lens-barrel assembly

A zoom lens assembly with an auto-focus function includes first and second lens groups, and a control device for causing a drive mechanism to rotate a distance-presetting ring which moves one of the lens groups, to adjust a focus in accordance with a signal sent from a light-receiving element for indicating the focused state of a foreground object. A line pattern substrate is arranged to move with the distance-presetting ring. A change in the focal length caused by the rotation of a zoom ring is sensed by a substrate detecting element which informs the control device of that extent to which the distance-presetting ring is to be rotated in order to assure a proper focus notwithstanding the changed focal length. The corrective rotation of the distance-presetting ring is detected by movement of the line pattern substrate relative to the detecting element. The light-receiving element is supplied with a beam of light reflected from the foreground object through the first and second groups of lenses.

Auto-focus zoom lens assembly

An apparatus for exposure correction is provided for use with a camera of automatic exposure control type. An amount of exposure which is determined on the basis of an output from photometric means is shifted by a given correction value toward overexposure or underexposure in response to the operation of a manual operating member. The correction value can be varied either automatically or manually. The correction value can be changed by automatically reading information given on a film or a film container and representing a film latitude, by manually supplying a film latitude value, or by utilizing information representing a film speed which has a correlation with a film latitude. In this manner, a photograph having an improved gradation can be obtained by effectively utilizing a film latitude.

Growing community of inventors

Hino, Japan

Kazutoshi Shiratori