Image sensing apparatus and method of controlling same

An image sensing apparatus comprising:

• an image sensing device for imaging a subject through a zoom lens, which is capable of optically scaling a light image, and out putting image data representing the image of the subject;
• an electronic zoom device for electronically scaling the image data obtained by said image sensing device;
• a zoom operating device for performing an operation for changing zoom magnification of the zoom lens and of said electronic zoom device;
• a zoom control device for scaling the image data using only the zoom lens if zoom magnification is within an optical-zoom application scaling range that extends up to a maximum optical zoom magnification which prevails when the zoom lens is situated at a telephoto end, and making joint use of said electronic zoom device if zoom magnification is within an electronic-zoom application scaling range that exceeds the maximum optical zoom magnification;
• a super-resolution processing device for subjecting the image data to super-resolution processing that emphasizes contours while suppressing emphasis of noise, thereby generating super-resolution image data;
• a weighted combining device for combining the generated super-resolution image data and image data, which has not been subjected to super-resolution processing, by weighting processing executed such that the higher the zoom magnification, the greater the weight assigned to the super-resolution image data;
• and
• a recording control device for recording in a recording device image data that has been scaled to the zoom magnification and not subjected to super-resolution processing, this being performed if zoom magnification is equal to or less than a zoom magnification at which a spatial frequency response, which is decided by characteristics of said image sensing apparatus and the zoom magnification, takes on a prescribed value with regard to a predetermined standard spatial frequency, and for recording in the recording device image data, which has been obtained by weighting and combining the super-resolution image data and the image data that has not been subjected to super-resolution processing, upon scaling this weighted and combined image data to the zoom magnification, this being performed in a case where zoom magnification is greater than the zoom magnification at which the spatial frequency response takes on the prescribed value.

A method of controlling an image sensing apparatus having an image sensing device for imaging a subject through a zoom lens, which is capable of optically scaling a light image, and outputting image data representing the image of the subject;

• an electronic zoom device for electronically scaling the image data obtained by the image sensing device;
• a zoom operating device for performing an operation for changing zoom magnification of the zoom lens and of the electronic zoom device;
• a zoom control device for scaling the image data using only the zoom lens if zoom magnification is within an optical-zoom application scaling range that extends up to a maximum optical zoom magnification which prevails when the zoom lens is situated at a telephoto end, and making joint use of the electronic zoom device if zoom magnification is within an electronic-zoom application scaling range that exceeds the maximum optical zoom magnification;
• and a super-resolution processing device for subjecting the image data to super-resolution processing that emphasizes contours while suppressing emphasis of noise, thereby generating super-resolution image data;
• said method having a step of combining the generated super-resolution image data and image data, which has not been subjected to super-resolution processing, by weighting processing executed such that the higher the zoom magnification, the greater the weight assigned to the super-resolution image data, this being performed when the zoom magnification is within the electronic-zoom application scaling range.

A method of controlling an image sensing apparatus having an image sensing device for imaging a subject through a zoom lens, which is capable of optically scaling a light image, and outputting image data representing the image of the subject;

• an electronic zoom device for electronically scaling the image data obtained by the image sensing device;
• a zoom operating device for performing an operation for changing zoom magnification of the zoom lens and of the electronic zoom device;
• a zoom control device for scaling the Image data using only the zoom lens if zoom magnification is within an optical-zoom application scaling range that extends up to a maximum optical zoom magnification which prevails when the zoom lens is situated at a telephoto end, and making joint use of the electronic zoom device if zoom magnification is within an electronic-zoom application scaling range that exceeds the maximum optical zoom magnification;
• and a super-resolution processing device for subjecting the image data to super-resolution processing that emphasizes contours while suppressing emphasis of noise, thereby generating super-resolution image data;
• said method having steps of:
• combining the generated super-resolution image data and image data, which has not been subjected to super-resolution processing, by weighting processing executed such that the higher the zoom magnification, the greater the weight assigned to the super-resolution image data;
• and
• recording in a recording device image data that has been scaled to the zoom magnification and not subjected to super-resolution processing, this being performed if zoom magnification is equal to or less than a zoom magnification at which a spatial frequency response, which is decided by characteristics of said image sensing apparatus and the zoom magnification, takes on a prescribed value with regard to a predetermined standard spatial frequency, and recording in the recording device image data, which has been obtained by weighting and combining the super-resolution image data and the image data that has not been subjected to super-resolution processing, upon scaling this weighted and combined image data to the zoom magnification, this being performed in a case where zoom magnification is greater than the zoom magnification at which the spatial frequency response takes on the prescribed value.