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.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 11, 2011
Filed:
Dec. 02, 2009
Riichi Ono, Osaka, JP;
Shinichi Fujii, Osaka, JP;
Riichi Ono, Osaka, JP;
Shinichi Fujii, Osaka, JP;
Sony Corporation, , JP;
Abstract
An image pickup apparatus includes an imaging element having a group of AF pixel pairs that realizes a pupil-dividing function and a group of normal pixels without such a pupil-dividing function. The image pickup apparatus performs focus control for driving a focus lens toward an in-focus position detected by phase different AF based on a pixel signal generated from the group of AF pixel pairs when it is determined that the reliability of the phase difference AF is high based on the pixel signal. The image pickup apparatus performs focus control for driving a focus lens in an in-focus direction detected by contrast AF based on a pixel signal generated from the group of normal pixels when it is determined that the reliability of the phase difference AF is low.