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:
Sep. 16, 2014
Filed:
Dec. 14, 2011
Yuki Endo, Yokohama, JP;
Yuki Endo, Yokohama, JP;
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, , KR;
Abstract
An imaging apparatus and an imaging method, wherein a focus location direction discriminator estimates a direction toward a focus location based on two contrast evaluation values corresponding to two imaging optical systems having different image focusing locations. Therefore, the imaging apparatus and the imaging method can directly start an AF operation at current image focusing locations of two imaging optical systems, without setting the image focusing locations to fixed initial locations in a focusing operation of the imaging optical systems. As a result, AF operation time and power consumption are reduced without failing to find a direction of image focusing location.