Image capture apparatus and control method therefor
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorYasuyoshi Miyazaki
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
At least one exemplary embodiment can control light emission so as to facilitate a face area of a subject to be adequately photographed. In the at least one exemplary embodiment, respective face areas of the subject can be detected from captured image signals acquired before and after preliminary light emission, and a luminance comparison calculation can be performed between the detected face areas from the captured image signals, so that light amount control can be performed in an area centered on the face area of the subject.
Claims20
An image capture apparatus comprising:
- a first image data acquiring unit configured to acquire first image data when preliminary light emission is not performed;
- a second image data acquiring unit configured to acquire second image data when preliminary light emission is performed;
- a face area detection unit configured to detect a face area of a subject from at least one of the first image data acquired by the first image data acquiring unit and the second image data acquired by the second image data acquiring unit;
- a luminance comparison calculation unit configured to compare the first image data and the second image data with respect to luminance based on the face area of the subject detected by the face area detection unit and calculate at least one luminance comparison value;
- and
- a main light emission amount determination unit configured to determine an amount of main light emission based on the at least one luminance comparison value calculated by the luminance comparison calculation unit.
A control method for an image capture apparatus, comprising:
- using a processor to perform the steps of:
- acquiring a first image data when preliminary light emission is not performed;
- acquiring a second image data when preliminary light emission is performed;
- detecting a face area of an subject from at least one of the first image data acquired by the first image data acquiring step and the second image data acquired by the second image data acquiring step;
- comparing the first image data and the second image data with respect to luminance based on the face area of the subject detected by the face area detection step;
- calculating at least one luminance comparison value;
- and
- determining an amount of main light emission based on the at least one luminance comparison value.
An image capture apparatus comprising:
- an image data acquiring unit configured to acquire the image data;
- a face area detection unit configured to detect a face area of a subject based on the image data acquired by the image data acquiring unit;
- and
- a main light emission amount determination unit configured to determine an amount of main light emission based on a luminance of a first image data acquired when a preliminary light emission is not performed and the luminance of a second image data acquired when the preliminary light emission is performed, so as the luminance of the face area of the object to become target luminance,
- wherein the main light emission amount determination unit determines the amount of main light emission by setting the area corresponding to the face area of the object of the second image data from among the area of the first image data, in case the face area of the object could not be detected based on the first image data but detected based on the second image data.
A method performed in an image capture apparatus which includes an image data acquiring unit, face area detection unit, main light emission amount and determination unit, the method comprising:
- via the image data acquiring unit, acquiring image data;
- via the face area detection unit, detecting a face area of a subject based on the image data acquired by the image data acquiring unit;
- and
- via the main light emission amount determination unit, determining an amount of main light emission based on a luminance of a first image data acquired when a preliminary light emission is not performed and the luminance of a second image data acquired when the preliminary light emission is performed, so as the luminance of the face area of the object to become target luminance,
- wherein the main light emission amount determination unit determines the amount of main light emission by setting the area corresponding to the face area of the object of the second image data from among the area of the first image data, in case the face area of the object could not be detected based on the first image data but detected based on the second image data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.