Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Video Engineering, Incorporated

Hitachi Video and Information System, Inc.

Tomoyuki Kurashige

Takuya Imaide

Naoki Yamamoto

Hiroyuki Tarumizu

Noriyuki Iura

Yoshihiro Todaka

Hiroaki Kami

Toshiro Kinugasa

Masaru Noda

Hiroyasu Ohtsubo

An image pickup apparatus capable of generating a motion picture and a still picture. An amount of exposure in a still imaging mode is increased as compared with the amount of exposure for mode is increased as compared with the amount of exposure for one field in the motion picture imaging mode, preferably twice as large as the latter. In the still picture mode, electric charges are swept out from a CCD by an exposure control simultaneously with closing of a diaphragm for adjusting the amount of exposure. Upon occurrence of error in the closing operation of the diaphragm, the amount of exposure in the still picture mode is set to a design value. On the basis of difference between the design value and an actually measured value of the amount of exposure, gain for video signal is corrected. In the motion picture mode, the diaphragm and the electronic shutter speed is adjusted for preventing flicker from making appearance under illumination of a fluorescent lamp in indoor photographing. The adjusted speed can be 1/100 sec.

Image pickup apparatus and method of controlling the same

An auto-iris method for an imaging device includes the steps of obtaining a first signal indicating brightness of an object from a signal output from an imaging element; comparing a level of the first signal with a level of a reference signal; and enhancing a level of the reference signal more as the object becomes brighter and controlling an iris to path more quantity of light to the imaging element, based on the compared result.

Auto-iris method and apparatus for imaging device

Disclosed are an image pickup apparatus and method and system for controlling the exposure of the image pickup apparatus. The image pickup apparatus includes a circuit for detecting a voltage corresponding to a current value of an iris, a circuit for generating a voltage corresponding to a desired iris value, a circuit for comparing the two voltages, and a circuit for controlling the iris based on the result of the comparison so as to keep the iris value at the desired value, in which the exposure start time of an image pick-up device is changed in an increment/decrement of one horizontal scanning period and/or in an increment/decrement of a period shorter than one horizontal scanning period to thereby make it possible to perform manual-iris mode automatic exposure control.

Image pickup apparatus and method and system for controlling the

An image pickup apparatus is provided with a first adder which outputs a sum signal by adding a first luminance signal produced from the signals of odd-numbered lines of a solid-state image sensor and a second luminance signal produced from the signals of even-numbered lines of the solid-state image sensor, a first subtracter which outputs a difference signal by subtracting the first luminance signal from the second luinance signal, a noise reducer which reduces noise in the difference signal, a second adder which outputs a third luminance signal by adding the difference signal with its noise reduced to the sum signal, and a second subtracter which outputs a fourth luminance signal by subtracting the difference signal with its noise reduced from the sum signal. A frame still picture is formed from the third luminance signal and fourth luminance signal.

Frame still pictures with no double images

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Yokohama, Japan

Tomoyuki Kurashige