Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Olympus Corporation

Kuniaki Saito

Hiroaki Koseki

Osamu Inagaki

Hidetoshi Fukuda

Minoru Kakinuma

Tatsuo Nagasaki

Akira Shimizu

Toshiyuki Ebihara

Yutaka Adachi

Toshihide Yamaoka

Disclosed herein is an electronic camera for generating an image having a wide dynamic range by synthesizing two image pickup signals of different exposure amount generated by using an electronic shutter function and means for shutting off light, shading of image pickup signals resulting from difference in charge accumulating time among the pixels of image pickup device due to operation from opened state to closed state of the means for shutting off light being corrected by a shading correction means to form a synthesized image without an occurrence of false color due to shading. Also provided is an electronic camera generating two image pickup signals of different exposure amount by two shots of picture taking each using a flash emission in combination, at least one of an electronic shutter of image pickup device and means for shutting off light, as well as an emission of the flash emission means, being controlled to equalize between the two shots of picture taking ratio of exposure by normal light excluding light from the flash emission means and ratio of emission amount by the light from the flash emission means so that the two image pickup signals can be readily generated as having a predetermined exposure amount ratio in every part of a frame of picture even when a flash emission is used in combination.

Electronic camera for synthesizing two images having a white balance correction

Electronic camera that synthesizes two images taken under different exposures

An image pickup apparatus includes a lens as an image pickup optical system having a zooming function, an X-Y address type image pickup device in which a reading position in a two-dimensionally arranged pixels is designated by a combination of an X address and a Y address, an image pickup device driver which performs electronic zooming by changing an address range which is a combination of a range designated by the X address and a range designated by the Y address, and a digital processor which provides a substantially wider zoom range by controlling the electronic zooming and optical zooming in combination than by controlling one of the electronic zooming and the optical zooming.

Image pickup apparatus

A printer incorporated type electronic camera composed of an imaging unit including an imaging lens and a CCD, a printer unit, a cassette information detecting/recording unit, a tape cassette in which a recording tape having an adhesive agent applied to the back surface thereof is wound and accommodated and which can be detachably loaded and a controller for controlling respective elements. A subject image captured by the imaging unit is printed on recording tape in the tape cassette by the printer unit. Processing for fitting an image captured from an external source to the print image, and the like can be carried out. The tape cassette for print can be easily loaded to the printer incorporated type electronic camera and further the camera is less expensive. Since the radius of curvature of the recording tape when it is fed out is smaller that when it is accommodated, the recording tape can be easily exfoliated.

Printer incorporated type electronic camera and member to be recorded

An imaging display system including: an imaging apparatus including an X-Y addressing type solid-state imaging device, a motion detector for specifying a partial area within the whole image area of the solid-state imaging device, a block scan driving signal generator for generating a driving signal used to scan the pixels in a block, that is, an area specified by the motion detector, a thinning-out scan driving signal generator for generating a driving signal used to scan the pixels in the whole image area of the solid-state imaging device while thinning them at a given thinning ratio, and a driving signal switching unit for switching the block scan driving signal and thinning-out scan driving signal; and a display apparatus including a memory for storing picture information transmitted from the imaging apparatus, and a display unit for displaying a picture corresponding to the picture information stored in the memory.

Imaging display system having at least one scan driving signal generator and may include a block thinning-out signal and/or an entire image scanning signal

An electronic image pickup apparatus comprising a focal plane shutter for controlling reception or cut-off of the light from an object, a CMD, image pickup device as a MOS-type internal amplification sensor, RGB channel process circuits for processing RGB outputs from the CMD, and a system controller for controlling the entire apparatus. The focal plane shutter lets in the light from the object to photograph for exposure. The resulting image data is temporarily stored in a memory. With no light from the object projected onto the CMD, a dark exposure is performed for the same time as the exposure to extract a signal corresponding to dark current. Reading the image data from the memory and reading the data at the dark exposure are performed at the same time. The dark current component is removed by subtracting the dark exposure data from the image data.

Growing community of inventors

Tokorozawa, Japan

Kuniaki Saito