Eastman-kodak Company

Chinon Kabushiki Kaisha

Sywind Co., Ltd.

Genesis Technology Co., Ltd

Nobuo Komatsu

Mitsuru Fukushima

Kazunori Gomi

Noriyoshi Fujimori

Peter Labaziewicz

An arm mechanism includes a first arm, which is hollow, a second arm, and a connection portion for mutually rotatably connecting the first arm and the second arm. A connection portionincludes a rotary shaft extending in a direction perpendicular to an axial direction of a first armand a second arm, a friction portion for generating a frictional force against rotation of the rotary shaft, and a biasing member which is housed in the first arm, has an end portion facing away from the rotary shaft and connected to the first arm, has an end portion facing the rotary shaft and connected to the second arm via a connection member, and generates a contraction force which is increased with an increase in angle between an axis of the second arm and an axis of the first arm by rotation of the rotary shaft.

Arm mechanism

There is provided a shutter device which is used in a camera having two image-capturing optical systems and enables a significant reduction in the number of components. Two shutter openings are formed in a shutter base. Shutter blades and a diaphragm plate are provided forward of the shutter base. When a cam pin is reciprocally moved from the position of a start point to an intermediate position or from the intermediate position to the position of an end point, the shutter blades open and close a shutter one or more times. When the cam pin is located at any position along the way from the start position to the intermediate position, the diaphragm plate is moved to a location where small diaphragm openings correspond to the shutter openings. When the cam pin is located at any position along the way from the intermediate position to the position of the endpoint, the diaphragm plate is moved to a location where open diaphragm openings correspond to the shutter openings.

Shutter device

The number of drive motors in a digital camera having multiple imaging optical systems is curtailed. The digital camera has a first imaging optical system and a second imaging optical system. The first imaging optical system has a zoom lens group and a focus lens. The second imaging optical system has another zoom lens group and another focus lens. The focus lens groups are actuated commonly by a focusing drive motor. The former focus lens group is moved by a gear Gand an outer peripheral gear of a lens guide ring. The latter focus lens group is moved by a feed screw.

Imaging apparatus including multiple optical systems

A binocular device includes two observation optical systems, an additional optical system, and a viewfinder for the additional optical system. An image-capturing unit is movable between a first image-plane position of one of the observation optical systems and an image-plane position of the additional optical system by shifting a lens-switching lever. A switch of the image-capturing unit can be turned on and off by a camera switch lever. For an observation mode using the observation optical system, the image-capturing unit is set at the image-plane position of the additional optical system. For an image-capturing mode using the observation optical system, the image-capturing unit is set at the first image-plane position such that the switch of the image-capturing unit is turned on. For image-capturing using the additional optical system, the image-capturing unit is set at the image-plane position of the additional optical system such that the switch of the image-capturing unit is turned on.

Monocular device and binocular device

A camera viewfinder optical system is interlockingly connected with a rotatable cam ring used to zoom a camera lens barrel system unit forwardly in an optical axial direction thus eliminating a bulky cam portion on the outer surface of the cam ring so a more compact zoom lens barrel unit is possible.

Zoom lens camera viewfinder

The viewfinder of a camera include one or more lens elements that zoom in coordination with the camera's taking lens, and normal/panoramic masking plates that pivot about horizontal axis in coordination, with moving masking plates for the camera's back frame opening or with signaling elements. Since the panoramic masking plates are not in the image plane, the aperture in a provided aperture plate is a horizontal slit opening, which provides a great depth of focus, to maintain image sharpness, when the masking plates are in the panoramic position.

Panoramic viewfinder mask

A lens barrel unit for a zoom lens camera which is more compact in the axial optical direction in the retracted state because the lens group moving means and linear movement guiding means are juxtaposed along the optical axis. The lens barrel unit also has a reduced outer diameter due to a reduction in the need for a separate outer helicoid portion of the moving means and elimination of guiding grooves on the inside of the fixed barrel unit.

Growing community of inventors

Suwa, Japan

Nobuo Komatsu