Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha

Tadashi Okino

Syuichiro Saito

Shinji Sakai

Nobuo Fukushima

Masahiro Takei

Akira Suga

Takashi Watanabe

Hidekage Sato

Nobuaki Date

Nobuo Tezuka

Yasutomo Suzuki

Makoto Ise

Shigeru Jinnai

Harunobu Ichinose

Kunio Ninomiya

Akimitsu Miura

Seiji Hashimoto

Atsushi Inoue

Masao Suzuki

Tetsuya Taguchi

Hideo Tamamura

Mutsuhide Matsuda

Mutsunobu Yazaki

Osamu Takeda

Shigeru Fukuyama

Osamu Takdea

An image pickup apparatus having optical and electronic zooms. A manually operated zoom element allows for movement of the optical zoom and an electrically operated zoom switch permits electric driving of the optical and electronic zooms. A control unit controls the apparatus so that the magnification is varied while the electronic zoom is kept constant, if the focal length of the optical zoom is varied by the manually operated zoom element in the state that the optical zoom is at its telephoto end and the electronic zoom is being operated

Image pickup apparatus with optical and electronic zoom

An image pickup apparatus includes a zoom lens, an electronic-zoom part for varying a magnification by subjecting a video to the processing of electronically varying an angle of view, a detecting circuit for detecting a spatial frequency of the video signal, and a control circuit for controlling a magnification of the electronic-zoom part on the basis of information indicative of the spatial frequency detected by the detecting circuit.

Image pickup apparatus

A lens position control device for a rear-focus type zoom lens includes a rear-focus type zoom lens, an image pickup element for converting an optical image formed by the zoom lens into an electrical signal, a signal processing circuit for executing signal processing of the electrical signal so as to obtain an electronic zooming effect, a focus detection circuit for detecting a focus adjustment state of the zoom lens, a memory for storing information associated with movement of a focusing lens group according to lens positions of a variable magnification lens group and a focusing lens group of the zoom lens, and a control circuit for, when it is determined based on an output from the focus detection circuit that the zoom lens is in an in-focus state, moving the focusing lens group on the basis of the position of the variable magnification lens group and the information stored in the memory, and for, when it is determined that the zoom lens is in an out-of-focus state, performing a zooming operation on the basis of a signal processing result of the signal processing circuit, and moving the focusing lens group on the basis of information detected by the focus detection circuit.

Photographing apparatus and lens position control device

An image pickup device is provided with a phototaking optical system for guiding light from an object to an image sensor which produces image information from the received light; a dividing unit for dividing the image information from the image sensor into plural blocks; an extraction unit for extracting from the plural blocks divided by the dividing unit, those with a relatively high content of high-frequency components; a detection unit for detecting focus information relating to the focus state of the phototaking optical system based on frequency information relating to the frequency components of the blocks extracted by the extraction unit; and a driving unit for driving the phototaking optical system according to the focus information.

Image pickup device

An image sensor has a light receiving section having a number of outputs along one dimension that is the same as the number of inputs along a dimension of a block serving as a unit for image processing, thereby eliminating the need for a buffer memory.

Image data compressing apparatus having a sensor size matching

A recording/reproducing system is provided with an image pickup element comprising a color filter having a plurality of colors. An image pickup device compresses the color image information obtained from the image pickup element to provide compressed image information. A recording device records the compressed image information on a recording medium. A reproducing device extracts and expands the compressed image information from the recording medium. The image pickup device compresses the color image information for the respective colors of the color filter, and the reproducing device forms color video signals after expanding the color image information.

Image pickup device having a plurality of pickup element regions and a

An image pickup apparatus having an electronic zoom and an optical zoom and in which the optical zoom is manually operable by a manual operation member. A detector detects the operation direction and amount of the operation member or the optical zoom and a controller controls the electronic zoom based on the detected operation direction and amount so that a zooming operation on the image is performed by both the optical and electronic zooms.

In a TV camera apparatus having an image sensor which photo-electrically converts image sensing light coming from an object, a signal processing circuit which converts a signal output from the image sensor into a luminance signal and color-difference signals and negative-to-positive inverters which invert the luminance signal and the color-difference signals from negative to positive, variable gain amplifiers are arranged within color-difference signal systems to amplify the color-difference signals; and the variable gain amplifiers are arranged to be controlled on the basis of the luminance signal.

Television camera apparatus

An image pickup apparatus including a memory for storing color temperature data concerning an illuminating apparatus, a colorimetric circuit for measuring a color temperature of ambient light, an amplification circuit for controlling balance of color signals obtained from an image pickup element, and a controller for comparing the color temperature of the ambient light obtained from the colorimetric circuit with the color temperature data concerning the illumination apparatus and for controlling the amplification gain by the amplification circuit according to the comparison result to adjust the white balance, and further including a detecting circuit for detecting that the color temperature of the ambient light is not the color temperature along the black body radiation, wherein, depending on the detection of the detecting circuit, illumination is made by the illuminating apparatus to thereby take the white balance matched with the color temperature data concerning the illuminating apparatus.

An image pickup apparatus including a memory for storing color temperature data concerning an illuminating apparatus, a colorimetric circuit for measuring a color temperature of ambient light, an amplification circuit for controlling balance of color signals obtained from an image pickup element, and a controller for comparing the color temperature of the ambient light obtained from the colorimetric circuit with the color temperature data concerning the illumination apparatus and for controlling the amplification gain by the amplification circuit according to the comparison result to adjust the white balance, and further including a detecting circuit for detecting that the color temperature of the ambient light is not the color temperature along the black body radiation, wherein, depending on the detection of the detecting circuit, illumination is made by the illuminating apparatus to thereby take the white balance matched with the color temperature data concerning the illuminating apparatus. A distance measurement device is also provided for determining the distance to an object to assist in the adjustment of the white balance.

Image pickup apparatus including distance measurement

In an image sensing device having an image sensor which converts the image of an object to be photographed into an electrical signal and an automatic gain control circuit which automatically controls the gain of the electrical signal, the operation of the automatic gain control circuit is limited according to the mode selected from various special photographic modes.

Image sensing device

An image pickup device includes a split member for splitting image pickup light from an object into a plurality of beams in equal light amounts, and forming object images at different positions, a plurality of image pickup elements, light-receiving portions of which are arranged at split positions which are not adjacent to each other when an object image is split into a plurality of image portions on each image formation plane, and an image synthesizing circuit for receiving information from the image pickup elements, and synthesizing the object image. The image pickup elements are controlled by a timing signal from a single clock generation circuit.

Image pickup device including means for adjusting sensitivity of image

A video camera including: an image pickup unit for generating an image signal; a level changing device for changing the level of the image signal; a negative-positive switching circuit for receiving the image signal outputted from the level changing device, the negative-positive switching circuit outputting the image signal outputted from the level changing device after inverting the level change direction of the image signal in a negative mode, and outputting the image signal outputted from the level changing device without inverting the level change direction of the image signal in a positive mode; and a control circuit for controlling the level changing device, the control circuit inverting the control direction between the negative and positive modes. The same control for both the negative image pickup and positive image pickup can be carried out by similar processes and operations.

Video camera with negative-positive reversal function

A recording and/or reproducing apparatus arranged to permit an interchange of record bearing media and selection between recording and reproducing modes of operation on the medium comprises look-up device for looking up the presence or absence of an existing record in each recording or reproducing position on the record bearing medium loaded on the apparatus, and control unit arranged to control the look-up device to cause it to perform a look-up action in response to opening of a lid for replacement of the record bearing medium and to cut off the power supply upon completion of the look-up action. The control unit thus lowers electric energy consumption and saves electric energy from being wasted by the look-up action.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Tadashi Okino