The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Jun. 29, 2010

Filed:

Mar. 15, 2007
Applicants:

Masami Ogata, Kanagawa, JP;

Takashi Tsuchiya, Tokyo, JP;

Kazuhiko Ueda, Kanagawa, JP;

Inventors:

Masami Ogata, Kanagawa, JP;

Takashi Tsuchiya, Tokyo, JP;

Kazuhiko Ueda, Kanagawa, JP;

Assignee:

SONY Corporation, Tokyo, JP;

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H04N 5/235 (2006.01); G03B 7/00 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract

In an image pickup apparatus, a level compensator compensates the level of an image xL (i, j) sensed by an image sensor by exposure for a long time on the basis of the exposure of the image to produce a compensated image xL' (i, j), while another level compensator compensates the level of an image xS (i, j) sensed by the image sensor by exposure for a short time on the basis of the exposure of the image to produce a compensated image xS′ (i, j). The image pickup apparatus also includes an image synthesizer to synthesize these compensates images xL′ (i, j) and xS′ (i, j) to produce a single synthetic image x (i, j). A dynamic range compressor also included in the image pickup apparatus compresses the synthetic image x (i, j) to produce a compressed image y (i, j) for delivery to outside.


Find Patent Forward Citations

Loading…