Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Olympus Corporation

Naoaki Tani

Mitsuo Oshiba

Takao Rokutan

Takumi Sugaya

Takefumi Sakurada

Shinichi Imade

Shinzo Matsui

Akira Shirai

Takeshi Kindaichi

Naoto Shimada

Kazunari Hanano

Yasuhiro Miyazaki

Satoshi Okawa

Katsunori Kumai

Etsuyasu Kondo

Keiji Mukawa

Koichi Tamura

A shooting apparatus comprising: a focusing lens provided within a lens barrel including a shooting lens, the focusing lens being movable in an optical axis direction; a ring disposed so as to be rotatable with respect to the lens barrel; a rotation detector configured to detect a rotation amount and rotation direction of the ring; a controller configured to calculate, based on the rotation amount detected by the rotation detector, a moving speed of the focusing lens to control a movement of the focusing lens at the calculated moving speed in a predetermined cycle period and in accordance with the rotation direction.

Shooting apparatus and focusing method

A lens driving apparatus comprising: a stepping motor for driving a lens; a rotation detection sensor for detecting a rotation position of the stepping motor; and a controller which is capable of switching between open-loop control that performs position instruction in accordance with a predetermined pattern and closed-loop control that performs position instruction on the basis of follow-up delay, changes and accelerates the velocity for advancing the position of the stepping motor on the basis of a fixed velocity pattern by open-loop control when the lens starts moving, and transitions to the closed-loop control upon the velocity corresponding to the velocity pattern reaching a predetermined value.

Lens driving apparatus and lens driving method

The invention includes a first incidence plane, a second incidence plane, a third incidence plane, a first synthesis plane and a second synthesis plane that are interiorly orthogonal to each other. The first synthesis plane reflects light of a first color component that enters the first incidence plane, and transmits light of a second color component that enters the second incidence plane, having the first color component and the second color component, at least a portion of which has the same color component, and light of a third color component that enters the third incidence plane. The second synthesis plane reflects the light of the third color component that enters the third incidence plane, and transmits the light of the first color component that enters the first incidence plane and the light of the second color component that enters the second incidence plane. The light that enters the first, second, and third incidence planes is synthesized through the first synthesis plane and the second synthesis plane.

Colored light synthesis element and projection device therewith

An illumination apparatus comprises a plurality of luminous bodies as light sources, luminous body drive portions configured to drive to light each of the plurality of luminous bodies, an optical member configured to lead and apply light exiting from a luminous body lighted by the luminous body drive portion to an illumination target area, a light control member configured to perform change of a light path of the light exiting from the luminous body with which the illumination target area is illuminated and/or movement of the luminous body, a movable portion configured to operably drive the light control member, and a light selection portion configured to control the movable portion and/or the luminous body drive portion in such a manner that light with which the illumination target area is selected from light exiting from the plurality of luminous bodies.

Illumination apparatus, and image capturing apparatus and projector apparatus using this illumination apparatus

An illumination apparatus comprises an illuminant which radiates diffused light from an outgoing plane and generates heat, a light guiding member configured to guide the diffused light from the illuminant while reflecting the diffused light at the internal surface thereof, and a holding member configured to integrally hold the illuminant and the light guiding member at a predetermined interval. The light guiding member includes an incident end which is close to the outgoing plane of the illuminant, and into which the diffused light is incident and which is larger than the outgoing plane of the illuminant, and an outgoing end which is larger than the incident end. The holding member includes a heat conducting portion configured to conduct the heat generated at the illuminant, and a heat radiating portion configured to radiate heat from the heat conducting portion.

Illumination apparatus and display apparatus using the illumination apparatus

An optical pickup comprises a plurality of light sources for generating recording and reproducing light of information, a plurality of optical elements for treating light beam generated from the light sources, light detecting means for detecting light beam in a optical path to adjust various characteristics of the light beam, and a recording medium, wherein resolution or resolving power in recording time and in reproducing time is adjusted to match to each other.

Optical pickup

In an optical card recording/reproducing apparatus having a multi-track read type optical head in which a reproducing light beam is radiated on a plurality of tracks on an optical card having a large number of tracks parallel to each other so as to cause a plurality of reproducing light-receiving elements to simultaneously reproduce data of the plurality of tracks on which the reproducing light beam is radiated, the light beam is moved such that the maximum or minimum address of addresses of the tracks irradiated by the light beam is located at the target track. After one multi-track reproduction is performed, the light beam is moved by the distance corresponding to the number of multi-tracks.

Optical recording/reproducing apparatus capable of multi-track access

An optical information recording and reproducing apparatus comprising a first and a second laser diodes for generating recording light and reproducing light, respectively. A light emission condition of the second laser diode is always controlled to the constant or predetermined light intensity which is adequate for reproduction, by an APC circuit. The first laser diode is controlled by a light-intensity control circuit so as to be brought to the intensity of light emission lower than a level which forms a pit on an optical card, in a reproducing mode other than a period of time of a recording mode. Under a focus and tracking control due to the reproducing light, a value of a focus error and a value of a tracking error due to the recording light at a low level are detected and sampled/held as a focus offset and a tracking offset. During a period of time of the recoding mode, focus control and tracking control due to the reproducing light are performed so that these offsets are brought to zero.

Optical information recording and reproducing apparatus in which

In an optical card recording/reproducing apparatus having a multi-track read type optical head in which a reproducing light beam is radiated on a plurality of tracks on an optical card having a large number of tracks parallel to each other so as to cause a plurality of reproducing light-receiving elements to simultaneously reproduce data of the plurality of tracks on which the reproducing light beam is radiated, when the light beam is to be moved to a target track to be reproduced, the maximum value of an error to be caused during moving the optical head is subtracted from a difference between a current track and the target track so as to determine a moving amount, or when an error generated during the movement of the optical head is represented by .+-.G, and the number of light-receiving elements is set to be 2G+1 or more, any one of the light-receiving elements can be located on the target track by moving the optical head once.

An apparatus for writing and reading information on and from an optical card by projecting a writing light beam and at least two reading light beams onto the optical card includes a first semiconductor laser for emitting a writing laser beam, a second semiconductor laser for emitting a reading laser beam, a diffraction grating for diffracting the reading laser beam into multiple reading laser beams, and an objective lens for projecting the writing laser beam and the reading laser beams onto the optical card. A reading laser beam spot is formed on the optical card at a middle point between two reading laser beam spots. Images of the reading laser beam spots are received by first and second light receiving elements, respectively. By processing output signals from the first and second light receiving elements, it is possible to verify the recorded condition of pits immediately after recording in regardless of a direction in which the optical card is moved. It is also possible to check the condition of the information track immediately before the writing. In this manner, the writing operation can be performed at a high speed in a suitable and reliable manner.

Optical information writing and reading apparatus having two light

In an optical head for reading information signals out of a plurality of information tracks on an optical record medium by projecting a slit-like light spot onto the optical record medium, a laser beam having a substantially elliptical cross section is passed through a stop having an aperture to shield both edge portions of the laser beam to obtain a laser beam having a uniform distribution. Then, the laser beam emanating from the stop is made incident upon a cylindrical lens have a negative power in a direction of a major axis of the laser beam to form a laser beam having a uniform distribution in a longitudinal direction. The thus obtained laser beam is projected onto the optical record medium by an objective lens such that the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped laser beam spot is aligned with a direction substantially perpendicular to a track direction in which information tracks extend. In this manner, a plurality of information tracks are simultaneously illuminated uniformly, so that it is possible to obtain a plurality of information signals having substantially the same level.

Optical head having semiconductor laser

An optical information recording/reproducing device is constituted of a focus control circuit connected to a controller, a tracking control circuit, a data processing circuit, and a card feed control circuit. The data processing circuit includes a plurality of I/V converters for converting signals received by a plurality of signal reproducing light receiving elements arranged to an optical detector into current/voltage, and a plurality of binary circuits each for converting the output from the I/V converters into a binary signal in a reference level. The data processing circuit includes a selector for selecting at least two outputs of a plurality of binary circuits. The data processing circuit includes a plurality of bit-clock producing circuits and a plurality of demodulation circuits. The bit-clock producing circuits produce bit clocks based on binary signals originated from selectors and a plurality of binary circuits which are not connected to the selectors. The demodulation circuits executes sampling the two binary signals in accordance with bit clocks and executes data demodulation using the sampled results. The data processing circuit includes a plurality of memories storing demodulated results from the plurality of demodulation circuits.

Optical information recording/reproducing device which simultaneously

A CMD of XY address type is used as a photo detector. X and Y address signals output from the X and Y address generating circuit are applied to the CMD mechanically fixed to an optical head. Output from the CMD is binary-coded by a binary-coded circuit. A central position of a duration in which 'H' continues in a mean-value circuit is stored by an X and Y address detection & memory circuit as a reference XY address. An address range is set in which reading is executed on the basis of the reference XY address. The XY address within this address range is assigned to produce an optical picture element signals within a corresponding light receiving region. A playback signal, a focus error signal and a tracking error signal are generated from the optical picture element signals.

Optical head using image sensor of XY address type in photo detector

In an optical card reproducing apparatus, the data of a front ID portion is read, and whether a track address can be identified is determined. If the track address cannot be identified, a flag is reset, and the data of a data portion is read. If the track address can be identified, whether the identified track address coincides with a target track address is determined. If they do not coincide, the operation is ended. If they coincide, the flag is set, and the data of the data portion is read. After the data read from the data portion is stored in a buffer memory, whether the flag is set is determined. If the flag is set, data in the buffer memory is output as the data of the target track. If the flag is reset, the data of a rear ID portion is read, and whether the track address is identified is determined. If the track address cannot be identified, the buffer memory is cleared, and the operation is ended. If the track address can be identified, whether the identified track address coincides with the target track address is determined. If they do not coincide, the buffer memory is cleared, and the operation is ended. If they coincide, data in the buffer memory is output as the data of the target track.

Apparatus and method for reproducing information data from optical cards

According to the optical information recording/reproducing device of the present invention, upon recording of information, when a pit image on an optical detector which is formed by a recording optical beam spot at an information recording time arrives at a position of a O-order diffraction light spot image, while an optical card is moving in the forward direction, a light receiving element for signal reproducing senses a change in light amount. A verify signal is obtained immediately after recording based on the light amount change to perform a verify operation. Further, when a pit image on the optical detector formed by the recording optical spot arrives at a position of the image of the primary diffraction optical spot while a moving direction of the optical card is reversed and the optical card moves in the reverse direction to perform recording, a signal reproducing light receiving element senses a change in light amount. A verify signal is obtained immediately after recording based on the light amount change to perform a verify operation. Since irradiation is made in which the space between the recording optical spot and the O-order diffraction light spot is made equal to the space between the recording optical spot and the primary diffraction light spot b, an optical detector can receive the verify signal at the same timing even if the optical card moves in the forward or reverse direction.

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Hachioji, Japan

Naoaki Tani