Fuji Photo Film Company, Limited

Fujifilm Corporation

Yasunobu Kayanuma

Takeshi Misawa

Akimasa Kaya

Masaaki Orimoto

Atsushi Misawa

Kazuya Oda

Hiroyuki Iwasaki

Masaya Tamaru

Kazunori Ohno

Kazuo Ikari

Kazukiyo Tamada

Free setting of the angle or direction of a camera is available while the camera is being inserted into a cradle. A cradle for a digital camera is provided, which is capable of confirming a display screen of the camera, changing the recording medium or battery, or mounting or demounting a communication cable or the like while the camera is being mounted on the cradle without deteriorating the camera holding. The cradle has a structure such that a tripod screw hole is formed on the bottom surface of the cradle, thereby capable of fixing the cradle to a tripod while the digital camera is being inserted into the cradle. By making the height of rubber pads equal or higher than that of a tripod base, the cradle can be stably placed on a desk or the like. The cradle also has a structure that, among the walls holding the camera, a part of the walls that cover a liquid-crystal monitor of the camera, a media slot for a memory card, a terminal part including a power supply terminal or USB terminal is constituted by movable walls. The movable walls can be used as a simple tripod by employing a free stop structure or click stop structure.

Cradle for digital camera

Even if the digital camera is inexpensive without the function of reproducing images, it can effectively use a memory capacity and has the function of responding to quick image-capturing, and important images can be recorded with higher priority. The digital camera comprises a priority selection switch for selecting priority of an image, and information about selected priority is recorded in association with the image when the image is recorded. For example, priority is ranked on three stages of 'important', 'normal', and &#x201c;memo&#x201d;. When a recording medium for storing image data has an insufficient memory capacity, control is exercised such that an image with priority lower than a newly captured image is automatically erased to record the new image. Further, a recorded image may be analyzed to automatically assign a low priority value to an image that may be damaged.

Digital camera with priority information

A cradle is capable of supplementing convenience of a portable information apparatus such as a digital camera of which functions including an image display function and a removable medium are omitted. If the camera is mounted on a camera mounting section of the cradle, a camera connector is electrically connected to a cradle connector in synchronization with a mounting operation thereof. The control circuit contained in the cradle detects a connection of the camera, and automatically starts communication between them. The image stored in the internal memory of the camera is sent to the cradle side, and is displayed on a liquid crystal display.

Cradle for information apparatus, cradle for digital camera and camera system

A holder device for holding a recording paper roll includes a pair of holders. A first holder has a first fitting portion with an anti-slip device and a first engagement portion. The anti-slip device has two claw members for forward rotation symmetrically disposed each other with respect to a center of rotation of the recording paper roll, two claw members for backward rotation disposed likewise, and springs biasing each claw member to an engagement position. When the first holder rotates in a forward or backward direction, the claw members for forward rotation or for backward rotation move to the engagement positions, respectively, in order to prevent a slip of the recording paper roll. An edge of each claw member is tapered along an attachment direction of the recording paper for easy attachment.

Holder device of recording paper roll

A recording material roll is constituted by winding thermosensitive recording material of paper. A recording material magazine for the recording material roll includes a containing chamber, which contains the recording material roll. A supply roller is secured to the containing chamber in a rotatable manner, and advances the recording material from the recording material roll to an outside of the containing chamber. A pressing roller is disposed away from the supply roller in a winding direction of the recording material roll, and presses an outermost turn of the recording material roll.

Recording material containing device for recording material roll

An artificial crystal double refraction plate is attached to the top of a package having a solid state imaging device chip. The artificial crystal double refraction plate protects an imaging surface and has an optical low-pass effect. An IR cut coating is applied on the surface of the artificial double refraction plate. Another two artificial crystal double refraction plates are arranged separately from the artificial crystal double refraction plate attached to the package. These three artificial crystal double refraction plates achieve desired optical low-pass effects in horizontal and vertical directions.

Solid state imaging device for reducing camera size

An optical low-pass filter for a solid-state image sensor of an offset sampling structure is constituted of first and second optical members. The first optical member splits an incident light ray into a rectilinear ray and a refracted ray whose propagation direction is about 45&deg; to a horizontal direction of the solid-state image sensor. The second optical member splits an incident ray into a rectilinear ray and a refracted ray whose propagation direction is about 90&deg; to the horizontal direction. The optical low-pass filter having this configuration splits the incident light ray into four rays whose split points are at respective corners of a parallelogram. Assuming that Px represents a sampling interval in the horizontal direction, Py represents a sampling interval in the vertical direction, and D1 and D2 represent respective split widths of the incident light rays through the first and second optical members, the split widths D1 and D2 satisfy the following conditions: D1&ap;Px/{square root over (2)} and Py&lE;D2&lE;2&middot;Py.

Optical low pass filter

First, a CCD package is attached to a plane of a flexible substrate. A reference plane, which is parallel to an image forming plane of a solid state imaging device chip, is formed at the top of the CCD package. The reference plane is brought into contact with a reference plane of an optical unit, and a leaf spring presses the CCD package so that the CCD package can be fixed to the optical unit.

Method of attaching solid state imaging device

A zoom lens includes a front lens group having a negative power as a whole and a rear lens group having a positive power as a whole, and a stop included therein. For zooming, the front and rear lens groups are moved relative to each other on an optical axis. For focusing, only a rearmost positive lens of the rear lens group is moved. The zoom lens satisfies the following conditions:

Zoom Lens

An optical image formed by a lens system is incident to a CCD, and the CCD performs an electronic shutter operation. The CCD transfers the generated charges by a domino read method. After the electronic shutter operation, a motor is operated to move a shield plate from the lower side to the upper side to enter into an optical path to block the incidence of light to the CCD. On the surface of the CCD, charge transfer is made first, and shielding of light is made successively, from the horizontal charge transfer passage side. With the image pickup device shielding apparatus, the incidence of light can be positively prevented by a simple mechanism during charge transfer in a solid state image pickup device to improve the quality of the image.

Image pickup device shielding apparatus for electronic still camera

An electronic still camera having an optical system suitable for TTL direct dimming and capable of disposing a dimming sensor at a suitable position in a main body of the camera. A part of a light reflected by a subject and passing through a taking lens during stroboscopic photographing is diverged by a beam splitter provided on the optical axis of the taking lens and caused to fall into a half mirror. The reflected light diverged by this half mirror is led to the dimming sensor 34, and the transmitted light is led to an AE sensor via a focusing lens. With this arrangement, the dimming sensor can be provided in a position other than the vicinity of a taking shutter and the TTL direct dimming can be conducted.

Electronic still camera having an optical system for TTL dimming

A diaphragm electromagnetic drive device which comprises ring-shaped rotor and stator disposed coaxially about the optical axis of a taking lens and in which the rotor is rotated to thereby rotate diaphragm blades so as to vary successively a diaphragm diameter defined by the diaphragm blades. The mutually opposed surfaces of the rotor and stator are constructed respectively in the shape of a side surface of a truncated cone, so that the areas of the opposed surfaces can be increased without increasing the outside diameter and the length in the optical axis direction of the electromagnetic drive device.

Diaphragm electromagnetic drive device

A zoom lens device capable of performing magnification varying and focusing operations by moving part of an optical system. Magnification varying and focusing lens groups guided movably in an optical axis direction by two or more parallel guide shafts. One of the guide shafts is fixed such that it is located inside the extreme side end of a camera main body. Thus, the lens group of the zoom lens can be embedded in the camera main body so as to provide a compact camera. Also, the zoom lens can be assembled simply by inserting parts forming the zoom lens device over the guide shafts, which can improve the assembling of the zoom lens.

Growing community of inventors

Asaka, Japan

Yasunobu Kayanuma