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US 2012/0057058 A1Published application
Electronic camera for synthesizing two images having a white balance correction
AssigneeOlympus Corporation
InventorsMinoru Kakinuma, Hidetoshi Fukuda, Hiroaki Koseki, Osamu Inagaki, Kuniaki Saito
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Abstract
An electronic camera for generating an image having a wide dynamic range by synthesizing two image pickup signals of different exposure amount generated by using an electronic shutter function and unit for shutting off light, shading of image pickup signals resulting from difference in charge accumulating time among the pixels of image pickup device due to operation from opened state to closed state of the unit for shutting off light being corrected by a shading correction unit to form a synthesized image without an occurrence of false color due to shading.
Claims3
An electronic camera comprising:
- a single image pickup device having an electronic shutter function capable of desirably controlling exposure amount by controlling charge accumulating time;
- and
- unit for shutting off light from a light receiving surface of the image pickup device;
- and
- image pickup signal of smaller exposure amount generated by using the electronic shutter function of said image pickup device;
- image pickup signal of larger exposure amount thereafter generated by controlling charge accumulating time of the image pickup device by the unit for shutting off light;
- the two image pickup signals synthesized to obtain an image having an increased wide dynamic range;
- said electronic camera effecting control of charge accumulating time of the image pickup device by said unit for shutting off light through operation from opened state to closed state of the unit for shutting off light and further comprising:
- shading correction unit for correcting shading resulting from difference in charge accumulating time among the pixels of the image pickup device occurring due to the operation toward said closed state of the unit for shutting off light.
6 more elements
An electronic camera comprising:
- a single image pickup device having an electronic shutter function capable of desirably controlling exposure amount by controlling charge accumulating time;
- and
- unit for shutting off light from a light receiving surface of the image pickup device;
- and
- image pickup signal of smaller exposure amount generated by using the electronic shutter function of said image pickup device;
- image pickup signal of larger exposure amount thereafter generated by controlling charge accumulating time of the image pickup device by the unit for shutting off light;
- the two image pickup signals synthesized to obtain an image having an increased wide dynamic range;
- said unit for shutting off light comprising a focal-plane shutter, shutter charge of the focal-plane shutter effected immediately after a completion of electronic shutter's operation of said image pickup device in the state where charge accumulating operation of the image pickup device being halted, and charge accumulating operation of the image pickup device started after completion of the shutter charge so as to effect control of a charge accumulating time by a normal focal-plane shutter operation.
5 more elements
An electronic camera comprising:
- a single image pickup device having an electronic shutter function capable of desirably controlling exposure amount by controlling charge accumulating time;
- unit for shutting off light from a light receiving surface of the image pickup device;
- unit for generating from said image pickup device two image pickup signals of the same object differing from each other in exposure amount;
- and
- synthesizing unit for obtaining an image having an increased wide dynamic range by performing synthesis of the two image pickup signals obtained by the unit for generating image pickup signal;
- and
- said unit for generating image pickup signal:
- generating image pickup signal of larger exposure amount by controlling charge accumulating time of the image pickup device by the unit for shutting off light after generating image pickup signal of smaller exposure amount by using the electronic shutter function of the image pickup device if charge accumulating time of the image pickup device for obtaining image pickup signal of larger exposure amount is set as shorter than a time period required for readout of all the pixels of the image pickup device;
- and
- generating image pickup signal of larger exposure amount by using the electronic shutter function of the image pickup device instead of said unit for shutting off light if charge accumulating time of the image pickup device for obtaining image pickup signal of larger exposure amount is set as longer than the time period required for readout of all the pixels of the image pickup device.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.