# US 7,412,155 B2 · Imaging apparatus having a continuous shooting function > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 7,412,155 B2 - Document ID: US7412155B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 11/014,607 - Filed: 2004-12-16 - Published: 2005-06-30 - Granted: 2008-08-12 - Earliest claimed: 2003-12-26 - Assignees: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha - Inventors: Yasushi Kasai - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US7412155B2 ## CPC - H04N 23/667: Camera operation mode switching, e.g. between still and video, sport and normal or high- and low-resolution modes - H04N 1/00198: {Creation of a soft photo presentation, e.g. digital slide-show} - H04N 1/2112: {using still video cameras} - H04N 1/215: {Recording a sequence of still pictures, e.g. burst mode} - H04N 23/631: {Graphical user interfaces [GUI] specially adapted for controlling image capture or setting capture parameters} - H04N 23/633: {for displaying additional information relating to control or operation of the camera} - H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION ## Abstract An imaging apparatus includes an image capturing unit for obtaining still-image data, a recording unit for recording, in a recording medium, the still-image data obtained by the image-capturing unit, and a play-list generating unit which, in a continuous shooting mode for obtaining a series of still images and recording a series of still-image-data items representing the still images recorded in the recording medium, generates a play list specifying a process for playing back the series of still-image-data items. ## Claims ### Claim 1 An imaging apparatus comprising: image-capturing means; recording means for recording, in a recording medium, still-image data obtained by the image-capturing means; instructing means for instructing an image-capturing; mode-switching means for switching a mode of the apparatus between a plurality of modes including a single shooting mode in which the image-capturing means performs an image-capturing of a still image of one picture in accordance with an instruction by the instructing means and the recording means records, in a recording medium, a still-image-data item representing the still image of one picture and a continuous shooting mode in which the image-capturing means performs an image-capturing of a series of still images of plural pictures in accordance with an instruction by the instructing means and the recording means records, in the recording medium, a series of still-image-data items representing the series of the still images of plural pictures; and play-list generating means which, generates a play list for playing back, from among a plurality of still-image-data items recorded in the recording medium, the series of still-image-data items representing the series of the still images of plural pictures recorded in the continuous shooting mode, wherein the play-list generating means generates, in the continuous shooting mode, a new play list for each instruction by the instructing means, wherein the recording means stores the still-image-data item and the play list in a plurality of directories and records the still-image-data item and the play list each stored in the plurality of directories in the recording medium, and wherein the recording means stores the still-image-data item corresponding to the still image captured in the single shooting mode by the image-capturing means and the series of still-image-data items representing the series of the still images of plural pictures captured in the continuous shooting mode by the image-capturing means in a same directory and stores the plurality of play list generated for each of the instructions by the instructing means in another directory. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising playback means for playing back the series of still-image-data items from the recording medium in accordance with the play list generated by the play-list generating means. ### Claim 3 (depends on 2) The imaging apparatus according to claim 2, wherein: the play-list generating means generates the play list after adding, to the play list, information representing an image-capturing interval of the still-image-data items obtained in the continuous shooting mode; and based on the information representing the image-capturing interval added to the play list, the playback means plays back the still-image-data items at intervals in accordance with the image-capturing interval. ### Claim 4 (depends on 1) The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising transfer means for transferring the series of still-image-data items to another apparatus based on the play list. ### Claim 5 (depends on 1) The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising setting means for establishing a setting identifying whether the play list is to be generated by the play-list generating means in the continuous shooting mode. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: the play-list generating means generates a play-list file storing the play list; and the recording means records, in the recording medium, the play-list file and a still-image file storing the still-image data. ### Claim 7 An imaging method comprising: receiving an instruction for capturing images by an imaging apparatus in a respective mode selected from a plurality of modes including a single shooting mode in which the imaging apparatus performs image-capturing of a still image of one picture and a continuous shooting mode in which the imaging apparatus performs image-capturing of a series of still images of plural pictures: switching an image capturing mode, in the imaging apparatus, in accordance with the received instruction for capturing images: capturing one or more images, by the imaging apparatus, in accordance with the image capturing mode; recording the images captured in a recording medium, a still-image-data item representing the still image of one picture and a series of still-image-data items representing the series of the still images of plural pictures captured in the continuous shooting mode; and generating a play list for playing back, from among a plurality of still-image-data items recorded in the recording medium, the series of still-image-data items representing the series of the images of plural pictures recorded in the continuous shooting mode, wherein, in the continuous shooting mode, a new play list is generated for each received instruction: wherein the still-image-data item and the play list are recorded in a plurality of directories in the recording medium, and wherein the still-image-data item corresponding to the still image captured in the single shooting mode by the imaging apparatus is recorded on the recording medium the series of still-image-data items representing the series of the still images of plural pictures captured by the imaging apparatus in the continuous mode are stored in a same directory and the plurality of play lists generated for each instruction are stored in another directory. ### Claim 8 (depends on 7) The imaging method according to claim 7, further comprising playing back the series of still-image-data items from the recording medium in accordance with the play list generated. ### Claim 9 (depends on 8) The imaging method according to claim 8, wherein: the play-list is generated after adding, to the play list, information representing an image-capturing interval of the still-image-data items obtained in the continuous shooting mode; and based on the information representing the image-capturing interval added to the play list, the still-image-data items are played back at intervals in accordance with the image-capturing interval. ### Claim 10 (depends on 7) The imaging method according to claim 7, further comprising transferring the series of still-image-data items to another apparatus based on the play list. ### Claim 11 (depends on 7) The imaging method according to claim 7, further comprising establishing a setting identifying whether the play list is to be generated by the play-list generating means in the continuous shooting mode. ### Claim 12 (depends on 7) The imaging method according to claim 7, further comprising: generating a play-list file storing the play list; and recording, in the recording medium, the play-list file and a still-image file storing the still-image data. ### Claim 13 (depends on 7) A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing a method according to claim 7.