Image pickup apparatus and image pickup method
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorMasahiro Takayama
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image pickup apparatus which can reduce the time required for automatic focus scanning. The size of the face is determined based on information on a subject's face, which is detected from image data acquired by shooting by an image pickup device. The subject distance is estimated based on the determined size of the face. The depth of field is calculated. A range over which the focus lens is driven varies according to the estimated subject distance and the calculated depth of field.
Claims8
An image pickup apparatus comprising:
- an image pickup device that receives light from a subject through a lens, and outputs image data on the subject;
- a controller that acquires, from the image data, a plurality of evaluation values according to focus conditions at a plurality of positions of the lens by moving the lens over a predetermined range, and performs automatic focusing by moving the lens based on the acquired plurality of evaluation values;
- a face information detecting device that detects information on a face of the subject from the image data;
- and
- a distance estimating device that estimates a subject distance from said image pickup device to the subject based on the detected information on the face,
- wherein the controller sets, when the face information detecting device does not detect the information on the face of the subject, the predetermined range to a first range, and
- the controller sets, when the face information detecting device detects the information on the face of the subject, the predetermined range to a second range which is narrower than the first range, the second range including a position of the lens corresponding to the estimated subject distance.
An image pickup method for an image pickup apparatus having an image pickup device that receives light from a subject through a lens, and outputs image data on the subject, the method comprising:
- a control step of acquiring, from the image data, a plurality of evaluation values according to focus conditions at a plurality of positions of the lens by moving the lens over a predetermined range, and performs automatic focusing by moving the lens based on the acquired plurality of evaluation values;
- a face information detecting step of detecting information on a face of the subject from the image data;
- and
- a distance estimating step of estimating a subject distance from the image pickup device to the subject based on the detected information on the face,
- wherein the control step sets, when the face information detecting step does not detect the information on the face of the subject, the predetermined range to a first range, and
- the control step sets, when the face information detecting step detects the information on the face of the subject, the predetermined range to a second range which is narrower than the first range, the second range including a position of the lens corresponding to the estimated subject distance.
An image pickup apparatus comprising:
- an image pickup device that receives light from a subject through a lens, and outputs image data on the subject;
- a controller that acquires, from the image data, a plurality of evaluation values according to focus conditions at a plurality of positions of the lens by moving the lens over a predetermined range, and performs automatic focusing by moving the lens based on the acquired plurality of evaluation values;
- and
- a face information detecting device that detects information on a face of the subject from the image data;
- wherein the controller sets, when the face information detecting device does not detect the information on the face of the subject, the predetermined range to a first range, and
- the controller sets, when the face information detecting device detects the information on the face of the subject, the predetermined range to a second range which is narrower than the first range.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.