Patent · US Active

Digital camera, image capture method, and image capture control program

US7509042B2 · kind B2 · utility

29Cited by
4References
14Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 21, 2005
Grant dateMar 24, 2009
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 9, 2027

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG03B2215/05
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention provides a digital camera that is capable of capturing a picture in which the brightness between a main subject and a nighttime background are well balanced. When an image capture instruction is received while a night scene portrait mode is set, in a pixel addition output mode, an image sensor 16 is set to a high sensitivity state by performing pixel addition, and outputs low resolution non-flash image data. Further, in an overall pixel output mode, the image sensor 16 outputs high resolution flash image data in a low sensitivity state without performing pixel addition. Next, a resolution conversion circuit 40 converts a resolution of non-flash image data to be equivalent to a resolution of flash image data. Then, an image combining circuit 60 adds respective pixel values of corresponding pixels in the non-flash image data and the flash image data having the same resolution and combines both sets of image data to generate image data for recording.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.