Fuji Photo Optical Co., Ltd.

Other

Fujinon Corporation

Fuji Photo Film Company, Limited

Makoto Akiba

Tatsuo Saito

Hiroyuki Arai

Hideo Yoshida

Akio Omiya

Tokuji Sato

Hisashi Hamada

Kunihiko Tanaka

Minoru Ishiguro

Shigenori Goto

Haruo Onozuka

Minoru Takahashi

Yasuhiro Nishitani

Takao Umetsu

Shiro Hashimoto

Kazuaki Nagata

A drive controller is provided and controls the supply of driving pulses in such a way as to make an extension speed and a contraction speed along a direction of a piezoelectric element differ to cause the piezoelectric element to extend and contract, so as to move a lens, the drive controller including an AF evaluation value-measuring device for measuring an AF evaluation value in a driving direction of the lens, a return pulse number-calculating device for calculating a maximum value-presuming position so as to calculate a return pulse number, a reverse movement-control device for returning the lens in a reverse direction, a threshold calculating device for calculating an evaluation value threshold, a measurement and determination means for remeasuring the AF evaluation value and determining whether or not an AF re-evaluation value is equal to or larger than the evaluation value threshold, and an AF evaluation value remeasuring device for remeasuring an AF evaluation value in the reverse direction of the lens.

Drive controller

A driving control devicecontrols supply of driving pulses to expand and contract a piezoelectric elementso that an expansion rate is different from a contraction rate, to vibrate a driving rodand move a lensfrictionally engaging with the driving rodin two directions. The driving control deviceincludes an actual driving pulse number measuring unitthat measures actual driving pulse numbers, which are required to move the lensby a predetermined movement amount in the two directions, before a focusing operation of the lens, a correction factor calculating unitthat calculates correction factors relating to a driving pulse number, based on the actual driving pulse numbers and a predetermined reference pulse number; and a driving pulse number correcting unitthat corrects a driving pulse number supplied to the piezoelectric elementbased on the correction factors.

Driving control device, portable optical apparatus and driving control method

Modes of a camera are classified into groups according to their type. On an LCD panel, the different groups are displayed on different rows, and modes to be selected out of each group are displayed in different columns. Group selection is accomplished by vertically manipulating a selector button, and mode selection out of each group is accomplished by laterally manipulating the selector button. This makes possible displaying of selectable modes classified by group on the LCD panel in a way perceivable at a glance. Furthermore, the choice of a group and that of a mode within each group are matched in the mode display arrangement to facilitate the operation for mode selection.

Camera having LCD panel displaying groups of camera modes

A camera is provided with a lens barrier for covering and uncovering an opening which is formed in a front face of the camera and is for exposing a taking lens. The lens barrier protects the taking lens when the camera is not used. The lens barrier is driven by a motor. This motor is controlled by a motor control unit relative to its rotational direction (forward and backward direction), its rotational amount and its rotational speed. As the motor, a DC motor is used. Into this DC motor, drive-pulse trains having different duty factor are inputted to control the rotational speed. Owing to this, an operation speed of the lens barrier is controlled so as to be faster when the lens barrier opens the opening, and so as to be slower when the lens barrier closes the opening.

Camera having a lens barrier

A camera has a bar code reader for reading a bar code from a roll film loaded therein. Bar code data read from the bar code is checked out whether it has a proper format or not. If the bar code data read from the bar code of the loaded roll film is proper, the bar code data is written in a nonvolatile memory, and the camera is set up in accordance with the bar code data. The bar code data of the nonvolatile memory is renewed each time proper bar code data is obtained. If the bar code data read from the bar code of the loaded roll film is improper, a display device displays film data represented by bar code data having been stored in the nonvolatile memory, along with an error indicia. If the displayed film data is invalid for the loaded roll film, the photographer enters film data of the loaded roll film through manual operation switches. Then, the camera is set up with the manually entered film data. If no film data is manually entered, the camera is set up in accordance with the displayed film data.

Camera with bar code reader

A D/A converter performs a D/A conversion on digital light quantity indication data outputted from a CPU to generate an analog light quantity indication signal. The analog light quantity indication signal thus generated is supplied to both a power supply circuit and a light quantity control circuit comprising a photometric sensor, an integration circuit, and a comparison circuit. The light quantity control circuit outputs to a flash light emission circuit a light emission stop signal at the time point when the integrated quantity of light reaches a threshold according to the light quantity indication signal.

Camera

In a camera wherein a lens cap is detachably attached there are provided first and second photometric sensors on a lens barrel and the camera main frame, respectively. It is detected in accordance with the photometric values by the first and second photometric sensors whether the lens cap is mounted. According to the camera, it is possible to detect with great accuracy whether the lens cap is mounted, with a standard type lens cap.

Growing community of inventors

Saitama, Japan

Makoto Akiba