JP2000106641A - Image pickup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve operability by displaying photographing contents in an easy-to-see way, when photographing a high-speed shot where a plurality of images are photographed within one field period. SOLUTION: A video camera 100 is an image-pickup device that has a viewfinder VF 8 to display an image picked up by a CCD 1 and is provided with a blanking BLK circuit 14 that reads a signal of a photoelectric conversion element for plural number of times within a single field period to obtain plural images within one image screen and generates a blanking pulse that causes at least one of the plural images in existence on one screen not to be displayed when the VF 8 displays one screen image.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a CCD, a video camera, and the like for imaging a subject using a solid-state image sensor.
The present invention relates to an imaging device such as a camera device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In today's video camera devices, a solid-state image pickup unit (CCD image sensor) formed of a plurality of solid-state image pickup devices is used as an image pickup means because it can be made smaller, lighter and lower cost than an image pickup tube. Is provided.

In general, such a CCD image sensor has a solid-state image pickup unit in which photoelectric conversion elements for receiving light and storing the same as electric charges are arranged in a grid, and the electric charges accumulated by each photoelectric conversion element are collected. Read and transfer this to CCD
It is configured to output as output.

[0004] The image picked up by the CCD image sensor can be confirmed by a monitor device such as a viewfinder (VF). FIG. 7A shows a general structure of a conventional video camera device.

In FIG. 1, a video camera device 70 removes a noise component from a signal output from a CCD 1 by a CDS / AGC 2 using a correlated double sampling method, amplifies the noise component with an appropriate gain, and outputs the amplified signal. The signal from the CDS / AGC 2 is converted into a digital signal by the A / D 3 and transmitted to the DSP 4. The DSP 4 subjects the digital signal sent from the A / D 3 to a predetermined video processing process or the like, and outputs the digital signal to the VTR 7 or VF 6.

Generally, in a CCD image sensor, as shown in FIG. 8, an odd field and an even field are read out for one field period, that is, at an interval of 1/60 second.
A method of capturing one image within one screen based on the data of the odd and even fields has been adopted. However, in recent years, in order to improve the dynamic resolution, the electric charge accumulated by each photoelectric conversion element is read out a plurality of times within one field period, and as shown in FIG. A high-speed imaging method for recording an image has been developed.

[0007]

However, when the high-speed imaging method is adopted in the above-mentioned CCD image sensor 50, when the recorded video is displayed on a normal VF 6, as shown in FIG. There has been a problem that images are displayed collectively on one screen.

That is, in the prior art, 1
Since there are one image, one image is displayed on the screen in a normal viewfinder. However, as described above, when a plurality of images exist in one screen, the image is reproduced and displayed as before, and the plurality of images are displayed on one screen.

Therefore, when the above-described high-speed shooting is performed using a video camera apparatus having a conventional viewfinder, the operator must perform a shooting operation while looking at the viewfinder in which a plurality of screens are displayed at a time. However, when checking the subject, there is a problem that it is difficult to set a target, and one image is small and difficult to see, resulting in poor operability.

[0010] The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and in high-speed imaging in which a plurality of images are captured within one field period, the contents of the captured images are displayed in an easy-to-view manner to improve operability. It is an object of the present invention to provide an imaging device capable of performing the above.

[0011]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 1 of the present application reads out the electric charge accumulated by light reception by the photoelectric conversion element as an electric signal, takes an image, and takes this imaged image. In the imaging apparatus having a display unit for displaying, the readout is performed on the photoelectric conversion element a plurality of times within one field period to obtain a plurality of images in one screen, and the one screen is displayed by the display unit. In this case, a blanking means for hiding at least one of the plurality of images present on the one screen is provided.

According to the image pickup apparatus of the first aspect, the readout of charges is performed a plurality of times during one field period to improve the dynamic resolution of the picked-up image. One of multiple images
By hiding one or more images, only the desired image can be displayed on the display means.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the imaging apparatus according to the first aspect, the blanking means hides an image other than any one of the plurality of images. By doing so, only the one image is displayed on the display means.

According to the imaging apparatus of the second aspect, in the imaging apparatus of the first aspect, one of the display means is provided.
Since only a single image can be displayed, operability when capturing an image while looking at the display means can be improved.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image pickup apparatus having display means for reading out an electric charge accumulated by light receiving by a photoelectric conversion element as an electric signal, picking up an image, and displaying the picked up image for one field period. The readout is performed a plurality of times for the photoelectric conversion element in the plurality of images to obtain a plurality of images in one screen, and when the one screen is displayed by the display unit, the plurality of images present in the one screen are displayed. It is provided with an enlarging means for enlarging and displaying at least a part of one of the images.

According to the imaging apparatus of the third aspect, since one or a plurality of captured images are enlarged and displayed, the operability at the time of imaging is improved.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [First Embodiment] Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of an imaging apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. The imaging device according to the present invention includes:
It can be applied to a video camera device.

As shown in FIG. 1, a main part of a video camera apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention captures an image of a subject, and uses a CCD image sensor 1 and a correlated double signal based on an image signal from the CCD image sensor 1. A CDS / AGC2 that removes a noise component using a sampling method, amplifies the noise component with an appropriate gain, and outputs the amplified CDS / AGC.
AD3 for converting the output from C2 into a digital signal;
And a DSP 4 for subjecting the imaging signal from D3 to predetermined video process processing and the like and outputting the processed signal.

A main part of the video camera device 100 is a memory 5 for temporarily storing an image pickup signal from the DSP 4.
A recording / reproducing unit 7 for recording and reproducing an image signal from the DSP 4 on a video tape, and selecting and outputting an image signal from the DSP 4 at the time of recording, and an image signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing unit 7 at the time of reproduction. It has a changeover switch 11 for selecting and outputting and a memory control unit 6 for controlling storage and reading of the memory 5.

Further, the main parts of this video camera device are as follows:
A display unit (V) formed of, for example, an electronic viewfinder or a small liquid crystal monitor for displaying an image corresponding to the imaging signal supplied from the DSP 4 and an image reproduced by the recording / reproducing unit 7.
F) 8, an external output terminal 10 for supplying an image signal to an external monitor device such as a television receiver,
A control unit 9 that variably controls how to read out the charges accumulated in the CCD image sensor 1 during recording and controls the reproduction state of the VTR 7 during reproduction according to the imaging mode.
And

Between the DSP 4 and the VF 8, a blanking circuit (BLK) 14 for non-displaying at least one of a plurality of captured images when displaying an image screen by the VF 8. Is provided. Further, between the control unit 9 and the CCD 1, a CCD 1 or a CDS / AG
A TG 12 for generating a signal for driving devices around the CCD 1 such as C2 and AD3 is provided, and an SSG 13 for performing a synchronization signal process for the DSP 4 and the BLK 14 is connected to the TG 12.

In the video camera apparatus 100, at the time of imaging (at the time of recording), the terminals 11b and 11c of the switch 11 are connected, and the output from the CCD 1 is transmitted via the memory control unit 5 to the VF 8 or the like. While displaying an image on a monitor device or the like, the image pickup signal is recorded on the VTR 7, and during reproduction, the terminals 11 a and 11 c of the switch 11 are connected to output the image pickup signal recorded on the VTR 7 to the memory control unit 5. Then, it is displayed on the VF 8 or the monitor device.

The above-described CCD image sensor 1 has a solid-state image pickup unit in which a large number of photoelectric conversion elements are arranged in a grid, and charges accumulated by each photoelectric conversion element by receiving light are converted into a horizontal synchronization signal and a vertical synchronization signal. A signal is added and output as an electric signal. In particular, as shown in FIGS. 2A to 2D, the CCD image sensor 1 according to the present embodiment has two images, that is, 1/1 during one field period.
The charge of the photoelectric conversion element is read out once every 120 seconds, and four images are taken in one frame period. The captured video is displayed on the VF 8.

The operation of the image pickup apparatus 100 having the above configuration for picking up an image will be described. FIG.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an operation of the imaging device 100 illustrated in FIG. 1 during recording.

First, when performing double-speed imaging, the control unit 9
A read control signal is supplied to each photoelectric conversion element so as to read the charge of each photoelectric conversion element at an interval of 1/120 seconds.
As a result, the charge stored in the photoelectric conversion element is reduced to 1/12
Reading is performed at an interval of 0 seconds, and two images are captured in each of the odd field period and the even field period. As a result, as shown in FIG. 3D, the upper and lower two images exist in one screen of the image captured and the image recorded on the VTR 7.

Next, when the imaging signal from the CCD image sensor 1 is supplied to the CDS / AGC 2, the CDS / AGC 2 performs noise removal processing based on a so-called correlated double sampling method on this imaging signal to remove reset noise and the like. Is amplified with an appropriate gain and supplied to AD3. AD3 is a CD
The output from S / AGC2 is converted into a digital signal.

The DSP 4 performs color separation (RGB) on the basis of the image signal obtained by the complementary color filter array, performs a predetermined video process process or the like on the image signal, and switches the image signal to the switch 11. Selected terminal 11
b. When the image pickup (recording) is performed, the changeover switch 11 is set to the selected terminal 11 by the selection terminal 11c.
Switching control is performed so as to select b. For this reason, the imaging signal from the DSP 4 is supplied to the memory control unit 5 for each field via the changeover switch 11.

The memory control section 5 reads out the image pickup signal supplied via the changeover switch 11 at a normal recording rate for each field, supplies the readout image signal to the VTR 7, and supplies the image pickup signal to the BLK 14.

The image pickup signal supplied to the VTR 7 is obtained by recording an image of a subject on a video tape for each field, and
Record multiple images in a field. In the present embodiment, since the charge of the photoelectric conversion element is read twice in one field period, the VTR 7 records two upper and lower images in one field as shown in FIG. 2D.

On the other hand, the image pickup signal supplied to the BLK 14 is blanked based on the output from the SSG 13. That is, the SSG 13 generates a blanking pulse for the BLK 14 in synchronization with the output of the imaging signal from the CCD 1 based on the synchronization signal from the TG 12. As shown in FIGS. 3B and 3C, the BLK 14 performs blanking in the VF 8 to make one of two images existing in one field invisible to the operator.

FIG. 4 shows a time chart of a signal for performing the blanking. As shown by VD in FIG.
In the CD1, based on the synchronization signal from the TG 12, for example, the charge of the odd (ODD) line is read in the first field period, and the even (EVE) is read in the next field period.
N) Read out the charge on the line. At this time, in the present embodiment, as shown by VD2, odd and even lines are read twice each. As a result, two images exist on one screen.

Then, the DSP 4 is driven so as to synchronize with the image pickup signal output from the CCD 1, and the DSP
As shown at t, the image signal is output to the VF 8. The BLK 14 blanks the image signal in synchronization with the DSPout.

In this embodiment, a blanking pulse is generated so that only the upper or lower one of the two displayed images is displayed. The operator can arbitrarily select which image is to be displayed. More specifically, for example, when a blanking pulse is generated for the lower image and only the upper image is displayed by the selection of the operator, the SSG 13 uses the VF-B in FIG.
A blanking pulse as shown in LK1 is generated. According to this VF-BLK1, in each of the ODD and EVEN field periods, a blanking pulse is generated for an image signal read out later among image signals read out twice in one field period. As a result, only the image displayed at the top of the two captured images is displayed.

According to such a video camera apparatus 100, when projecting a captured image on the VF 8, one of the image signals is blanked, so that only one image is always displayed. However, the operability when imaging with the CCD 1 can be improved.

[Second Embodiment] Hereinafter, a second embodiment according to the present invention will be described.

The overall structure of the video camera device 200 according to the second embodiment is the same as that of the video camera device 100 according to the first embodiment. That is, as shown in FIG. 1, an output from the CCD image sensor 1 that captures an image of a subject is recorded on the VTR 7 via the CDS / AGC 2, AD3, and DSP 4 and displayed on the VF 8 as well. Also in this video camera device 200, the electric charge of the photoelectric conversion element is read a plurality of times within one field period, and the video recorded on the VTR 7 has two upper and lower images in one field, as shown in FIG. Is obtained.

In particular, the video camera device 200
Is characterized in that an image captured by the CCD 1 is processed so as to be located at the center of the screen when displayed on the VF 8. That is, an image is captured by the CCD 1
The imaging signal output via the S / AGC 2 and the AD 3 is processed by the DSP 4 and is positioned at the center of the screen as shown in FIG.

Further, in the video camera device 200 according to the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 4D, the image arranged at the center is changed to the VF8 by arbitrary switching of the operator.
The image can be enlarged by, for example, electronic zoom or the like so that the image is displayed on the entire screen.

According to such a video camera device 200, only one captured image is displayed at the center of the screen, so that the operability at the time of capturing is improved. In addition, if the image projected in the center is enlarged, the operability is further improved.

[Modification] In the above-described first and second embodiments, two images are vertically divided and recorded in one field. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Absent. For example, as shown in FIG. 6A, the screen may be divided into four parts and four images may be arranged. In this case, as shown in FIG.
The other three so that only one of the images is visible to the operator
A blanking pulse is generated so as to cover one image.

In this case as well, one image made visible to the operator may be positioned at the center of the screen, or, as shown in FIG. You may enlarge by electronic zoom etc. so that it may move to the whole screen.

[0042]

According to the imaging means of the present invention, in high-speed imaging in which a plurality of images are taken within one field period, when displaying the taken images on the display unit, one of the plurality of images is used. By displaying or enlarging only the image, the captured image can be displayed in an easily viewable manner, and the operability of the imaging apparatus can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an overall configuration of a video camera device according to a first embodiment to which an imaging device according to the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an image recorded by the video camera device of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an operation for performing blanking at the time of recording in the video camera device of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a time chart showing an operation of generating a blanking pulse at the time of recording in the video camera device of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an operation of a video camera device according to a second embodiment to which the imaging device according to the present invention is applied.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an image recorded by the video camera device of the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing the operation of a conventional video camera device.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing an image recorded by a conventional video camera device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: CCD image sensor, 2: Correlated double sampling / automatic gain controller (CDS / AGC), 3: Analog
Digital conversion (A / D), 4 ... Digital signal processor (DSP), 5 ... Memory control means, 7 ... VTR, 8
... Electronic viewfinder, 9 ... Control unit, 12 ... TG, 1
3 ... SSG, 14 ... Blanking circuit

[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] October 20, 1999 (1999.10.
20)

[Procedure amendment 1]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0005

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

In FIG. 1, a video camera 70 converts a signal output from a CCD image sensor 1 into a CD.
A noise component is removed by the S / AGC2 using the correlated double sampling method, and the amplified noise is amplified with an appropriate gain and output.
In step 3, the signal is converted into a digital signal and transmitted to the DSP 4. The digital signal sent from this A / D3 is
Performs VTR7 or V
Output to F8. TG12 is a CCD image sensor 1
The TG 12 is for generating a signal for driving devices around the CCD image sensor 1, such as the CDS / AGC2 and the AD3.

[Procedure amendment 2]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0007

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

[0007]

However, when the above-mentioned CCD image sensor 1 employs the high-speed imaging method, when the recorded video is displayed on a normal VF 8, as shown in FIG. There has been a problem that images are displayed collectively on one screen.

[Procedure amendment 3]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0019

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

A main part of the video camera device 100 is a memory 6 for temporarily storing an image pickup signal from the DSP 4.
A recording / reproducing unit 7 for recording and reproducing an image signal from the DSP 4 on a video tape, and selecting and outputting an image signal from the DSP 4 at the time of recording, and an image signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing unit 7 at the time of reproduction. It has a changeover switch 11 for selecting and outputting, and a memory control unit 5 for controlling storage and reading of the memory 6.

[Procedure amendment 4]

[Document name to be amended] Drawing

[Correction target item name] Fig. 1

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

FIG.

[Procedure amendment 5]

[Document name to be amended] Drawing

[Correction target item name] Figure 3

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

FIG. 3

[Procedure amendment 6]

[Document name to be amended] Drawing

[Correction target item name] Fig. 5

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

FIG. 5

[Procedure amendment 7]

[Document name to be amended] Drawing

[Correction target item name] Fig. 7

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

FIG. 7

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An imaging apparatus having a display means for reading out an electric charge accumulated by light reception by a photoelectric conversion element as a light signal and capturing an image and displaying the captured image, wherein a plurality of the photoelectric conversion elements are provided within one field period. The reading is performed a plurality of times to obtain a plurality of images within one screen, and when the one screen is displayed by the display means,
An imaging apparatus, comprising: a blanking unit for hiding at least one of the plurality of images present on a screen. 2. The imaging device according to claim 1, wherein the blanking unit hides an image other than any one of the plurality of images, so that the display unit displays the image. Is an imaging device wherein only the one image is displayed. 3. An image pickup apparatus having a display means for reading out an electric charge accumulated by light reception by a photoelectric conversion element as a light signal as an electric signal and displaying the picked-up image, wherein a plurality of the photoelectric conversion elements are provided within one field period. The reading is performed twice to obtain a plurality of images in one screen, and when the one screen is displayed by the display means, at least one of the plurality of images present in the one screen is displayed. An image pickup apparatus comprising an enlargement unit for enlarging and displaying a part of a sheet.