Method and apparatus for storing and displaying an image taken by a rotatable image pickup portion

A camera comprising:

• a main body;
• an image pickup device having an optical system for taking a photograph, being rotatable relative to said main body, being detachable from said main body, and able to communicate with said main body in a state detached from said main body;
• an image memory, which temporarily stores image data for displaying a picture taken by said image pickup device;
• a display device mounted to said main body at a rear side thereof for displaying the picture based on the image data temporarily stored in said image memory;
• a storage device which stores the picture taken by said image pickup device as image signals in a recording medium;
• a detector which detects a direction of said image pickup device;
• and
• a controller which carries out control so as to reverse display direction of the picture displayed in said display device upside down by setting the image data in said image memory so as to reverse the picture upside down when said image pickup device is connected to said main body and said detector detects that the optical axis of said image pickup device is directed to a back side relative to said main body, controls said display device by setting the image data in said image memory as received to display the picture irrespective of the direction of said image pickup device when said image pickup device communicates with said main body in a state detached from said main body, and controls said storage device to store the image signals of the picture irrespective of the direction of the image pickup device and a state of attachment and detachment of said image pickup device to said main body,
• wherein said controller controls said storage device to store a thumbnail picture by reversing the direction of the thumbnail picture upside down when said image pick up device is connected to said camera main body and said detector detects that the optical axis of the image pickup device is directed to a back side relative to said camera main body.

A camera comprising:

• a camera main body;
• an image pickup device having an optical system for taking a photograph, being rotatable relative to said camera main body, being detachable from said camera main body, being rotatable relative to said camera main body when attached to said camera main body, and able to communicate with said camera main body in a state detached from said camera main body;
• a display device mounted to said camera main body at a rear side thereof and displaying a picture taken by said image pickup device;
• a storage device which stores the picture taken by said image pickup device as image signals in a recording medium;
• a detector which detects a direction of said image pickup device;
• and
• a controller which controls said display device to reverse display direction of the picture displayed in said display device upside down when said image pickup device is connected to said camera main body and said detector detects that the optical axis of said image pickup device is directed to a back side relative to the camera main body, controls said display device to display the picture irrespective of the direction of said image pickup device when said image pickup device communicates with said camera main body in a state detached from said camera main body, and controls said storage device to store the image signals of the picture irrespective of the direction of the image pickup device and a state of attachment and detachment of said image pickup device to said camera main body,
• wherein said storage device stores the picture and a thumbnail picture thereof in the recording medium, and
• wherein said controller controls said storage device to store the thumbnail picture by reversing the direction of the thumbnail picture upside down when said image pickup device is connected to said camera main body and said detector detects that the optical axis of said image pickup device is directed to a back side relative to said camera main body.

A digital camera comprising:

• a camera main body which processes and records image signals;
• an image sensor which senses and converts an optical image of an object to the image signals with photoelectric conversion;
• a display device which displays the optical image of the object taken by said image sensor;
• a processor which produces image signals of a thumbnail image from the converted image signals;
• a storage device which stores image signals of the optical image of the object taken by said image sensor together with the image signals of the thumbnail image;
• a detector which detects whether a sensing direction of said image sensor agrees with a display direction of said display device;
• and
• a controller which controls said display device to display the image signals taken by said image sensor upside down and controls said storage device to store the image signals of the object image and the thumbnail image thereof by changing the direction of the thumbnail image upside down when the sensing direction of said image sensor detected by said detector agrees with the display direction of said display device.