JP2007096983A - Digital camera - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a digital camera with an openable and closable display unit, capable of instantaneously performing a photographing operation. <P>SOLUTION: When an opening and closing switch of display unit 117 is turned on (S403) before a preset time of a check time setting value 202 passes (y in step S405), the digital camera follows a setting of an operation setting value 203 (step S407) when a display unit opens, and starts recording a moving image (step S408) or maintains the power-on status (step S409). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a digital camera, and more particularly to a drive control method for a digital camera having a display unit that can be opened and closed.

  Some digital cameras and video cameras are configured such that an image being captured and a display unit for displaying the captured image are movable.

Then, by opening and closing the display unit, it is possible to switch between a use state and a non-use state, and there is one having a function of automatically turning on / off the main body in conjunction with the open / close state of the display unit. For example, see Patent Document 1.
JP-A-9-224176

  However, in the above-described prior art, only the power is turned on or off in conjunction with the open / close state of the display unit, and the operation control other than the power on / off is performed by the user arbitrarily operating the next operation. There was a problem such as missing a photo opportunity because the shooting operation could not be performed quickly.

  Therefore, in order to solve the above-described problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a digital camera capable of instantaneously performing a photographing operation in a digital camera whose display unit can be opened and closed.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a photographing means for picking up an optical image, a compressing means for compressing image data obtained by the picking means, and a recording means for recording image data compressed by the compressing means. A display unit that can be accommodated in the main body and configured to be openable and closable, a touch sensor that is provided in the main body and detects a contact operation to the main body, and an open / close detection unit that detects an open / closed state of the display unit And a drive control means for controlling the drive based on the detection results of the touch sensor and the open / close detection means.

    Further, in order to solve the above-described problem, the drive control means turns on the power when the touch sensor detects a contact operation to the main body.

  Further, in order to solve the above-described problem, the drive control unit starts a shooting operation when the open / close detection unit detects an open state of the display unit within a predetermined time after the power is turned on. It is characterized by this.

Further, in order to solve the above-described problems, the drive control unit turns off the power when the open / close detection unit does not detect the open state of the display unit within a predetermined time after the power is turned on. Is.

In order to solve the above-described problem, the present invention starts a photographing operation in response to whether the power is turned on after detection by the touch sensor, and when the open state of the display unit is detected by the open / close detection means. And setting means for selectively setting whether or not to do.

  According to the present invention, by starting moving image recording in conjunction with the operation of opening the display unit, shooting can be started instantly without missing the moment that the user feels desired to take.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an external view of a digital camera showing an embodiment of the present invention.

  FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating a state in which the display unit is stored in the storage unit provided in the main body constituting the digital camera. FIG. 1B is a diagram illustrating a state in which an image displayed on the liquid crystal display unit is visible.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the digital camera includes a main body 1. The main body 1 includes a lens 2, a flash 3, a still image record button 4, a liquid crystal display unit 5, a moving image record button 6, a jog dial 115, and a cross key. 8, a type selection key 9, a zoom bar 10, a mode lever 11, a power button 12, and the like.

  Further, the main body 1 includes a storage unit 21, and the liquid crystal display unit 5 can be stored in the storage unit 21. The liquid crystal display unit 5 is configured to be openable and closable. The liquid crystal display unit 5 can be taken out of the storage unit 21 and adjusted to an arbitrary angle while being opened. The liquid crystal display unit 5 includes an LCD (liquid crystal display) 51 and a speaker 52.

A touch sensor 116 is provided on the side surface of the main body 1. This touch sensor is composed of a temperature sensor, a piezoelectric sensor, or the like, and detects a contact state when a user holds the main body and transmits a detection signal to the system.

In addition, an open / close detection switch 117 is provided at a connection portion between the main body 1 and the liquid crystal display unit 5. The open / close detection switch 117 detects an operation of opening or closing the liquid crystal display unit and transmits a detection signal to the system.

In such a configuration, the feature of this embodiment is that the activation operation control and the recording operation control are performed in conjunction with the detection results of the touch sensor and the open / close detection switch.

Therefore, the system configuration of the digital camera of this embodiment will be described next with reference to FIG.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the system configuration of the digital camera of this embodiment. A CCD output digital signal 101 after A / D conversion (not shown) passes through a camera signal processing circuit 102, a JPEG / MPEG compression / decompression processing circuit 103, and a memory circuit 104 as a compressed image signal on the hard disk 105 or a nonvolatile memory. Are recorded in the memory card 106. At this time, the photographed image is displayed on the LCD 51 via the Video Decoder 107 and the LCD Driver 108.

At the time of reproduction, an image read from the hard disk 105 or the memory card 106 is displayed on the LCD 51 through the JPEG / MPEG compression / decompression processing circuit 103, the memory circuit 104, and the video decoder 107 via the LCD driver 108.

When a still image or a moving image recorded on the hard disk 105 or the memory card 106 is transferred to an external device or received from an external device, it is transmitted / received from the USB terminal 113 via the USB controller 111. This assumes that the external device is a PC. In addition, MPEG-compressed moving images can be directly transmitted to and received from an image recording / reproducing apparatus such as a DVD recorder without using a PC.

In general, when transferring these images to a DVD recorder, the MPEG-compressed moving image is decoded on the camera side, analog output from the video terminal or S terminal, and the analog signal is recompressed on the image recording / playback device side. save. In this method, for example, it takes one hour to record a moving image recorded for one hour on a DVD.

However, here, MPEG-compressed video data can be transferred as it is to a DVD as a streaming stream, and the transfer time depends on the compression rate, but it can achieve several tens of times the real time, and the image quality is Because it is not re-encoded, it remains high quality.

For example, it takes 6 minutes to record a moving image recorded for 1 hour on a DVD recorder. When a LAN is considered as a network, transmission / reception is performed from the LAN terminal 112 via the LAN controller 110. Note that the transfer to the DVD recorder is not limited to moving images, and may be still images or audio.

As described above, when the recording medium is the large-capacity hard disk 105, the number of recorded images increases, so that high speed is required for sending and returning images. For this reason, the JOG dial 115 is used to operate them without stress. The JOG dial 115 gives information on the rotation angle and rotation speed to the CPU 114 that controls the entire system. The CPU 114 may control the image display speed and the like from the information. The touch sensor 116 is detected and the display unit opening / closing switch 117 is transmitted to the CPU 114 while the user holds the digital camera body at the time of shooting, and is used for power on / off state transition control.

In this embodiment, the touch sensor 116 and the display unit opening / closing switch 117 are used to shorten the start-up time and start video recording. The operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. To do.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for selecting and setting the operation when the touch sensor 116 is detected and when the display unit opening / closing switch 117 is opened / closed using the selection menu. In setting 2-1, when the touch sensor 116 is detected, a setting value 201 for determining whether to turn on the power of the digital camera body is stored in the memory 104. This allows the user to select whether to automatically turn on the camera when the user holds the camera body or whether the user can turn on the camera by pressing the power button 12 without automatically turning it on. is there.

Next, in the setting 2-2, after the power is turned on by the detection of the touch sensor 116, the setting value 202 of the time for checking the state of the LCD open / close switch 117 is stored in the memory 104.

In this setting 2-2, the power is automatically turned on when the user holds the camera body depending on the setting state according to the setting 2-1, but the operation when the photographing or the reproduction operation is not entered for a certain period of time is performed. It is to set. That is, when there is no operation for opening the liquid crystal display unit 5 for a predetermined time after the touch sensor 116 detects contact, the time until the power is automatically turned off when the power is automatically turned off is set.

In setting 2-3, the operation setting value 203 when the LCD open / close switch 117 is turned on, that is, when the LCD 51 is opened, is stored in the memory 104.

Here, when the touch sensor 116 detects contact with the main body and the power is turned on, the next time the liquid crystal display unit 5 is opened, the shooting operation is automatically started, or the user presses the shooting button 6. The operation is to select and set whether to start the shooting operation.

As described above, if the automatic power-on based on the touch of the main body by the touch sensor 6 and the automatic photographing operation by opening the liquid crystal display unit are set, the user can execute the photographing operation instantaneously. Depending on what you can do.

Next, FIG. 4 is an operation flowchart of the present embodiment based on the above settings. When the digital camera is in a power-off state, the user has the digital camera body, so that the touch sensor 116 detects a contact operation and is turned on, and sends a detection signal to the CPU 114 (step S401). Then, the CPU 114 reads the operation setting value 201 when the touch sensor is turned on from the memory 104, and when the power is turned on when the touch sensor is detected (step S402: y), the CPU 114 shifts to the power-on state (step S403). . On the other hand, when the set value 201 is not set to turn on when the touch sensor is detected (step S402: n), the power off state is maintained (step S404).

Next, it is monitored whether or not the check time of the check time set value 202 has elapsed from the power-on state (step S303) (step S405). Then, when the display unit opening / closing switch 117 is not turned on, that is, when the liquid crystal display unit 5 is not opened (step S405: n), the power supply is turned off again.

On the other hand, when the display unit opening / closing switch 117 is turned on before the check time set value 202 elapses from the power-on state (y in step S405), that is, when the liquid crystal display unit 5 is opened, the CPU 114 stores the memory. The set value of the operation set value 203 stored in 104 is referred to (step S406). If the operation setting value when the liquid crystal display unit 5 is opened is set to start recording based on the setting value of the setting value 203, the shooting operation is automatically disclosed (step S408). On the other hand, if the setting is such that the recording is not started even when the liquid crystal display unit 5 is opened, the power-on state is maintained and a photographing operation by the user operating the photographing button 6 is waited.

  As described above, in this embodiment, the user who uses the digital camera detects that the digital camera is held and the touch sensor detects that the time until the start of shooting is shortened. be able to.

  In addition, by starting moving image recording in conjunction with the operation of opening the display unit, it is possible to start shooting instantaneously without missing the moment that the user feels desired to take.

It is a figure which shows the external appearance of the digital camera camera of the embodiment. It is a system block diagram which shows one Example of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement at the time of the menu setting of the embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement at the time of liquid crystal display unit switch switching of the embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 102 ... Signal processing circuit, 103 ... JPEG / MPEG processing circuit, 104 ... Memory, 105 ... HDD, 106 ... Memory card, 107 ... Video decoder, 108 ... LCD driver 109 ... LCD, 110 ... LAN controller, 112 ... LAN terminal, DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 111 ... USB driver, 113 ... USB terminal 15 ... Power button, 114 ... CPU, 115 ... JOG dial, 116 ... Touch center, 117 ... Display unit opening / closing detection switch.

Claims (5)

Photographing means for capturing an optical image;
Compression means for compressing image data obtained by the imaging means;
Recording means for recording the image data compressed by the compression means;
A display unit arranged to be housed in the main body and configured to be freely opened and closed;
A touch sensor provided on the main body for detecting a contact operation on the main body;
Open / close detecting means for detecting an open / closed state of the display unit;
Drive control means for controlling drive based on detection results of the touch sensor and the open / close detection means;
A digital camera comprising: The digital camera according to claim 1, wherein the drive control unit turns on the power when a touch operation to the main body is detected by the touch sensor. 3. The digital camera according to claim 2, wherein after the power is turned on, the drive control means starts a photographing operation when the open / close detection means detects an open state of the display unit within a predetermined time. .   3. The digital camera according to claim 2, wherein after the power is turned on, the drive control means turns off the power when the open / close detection means does not detect the open state of the display unit within a predetermined time. A setting that can selectively set whether or not to turn on the power after detection by the touch sensor and whether or not to start a shooting operation upon detection of the open state of the display unit by the open / close detection means 4. The digital camera according to claim 3, further comprising means.

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