JP2000352759A - Electronic camera - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To surely obtain a high-definition still picture without missing a shutter chance even in the midst of taking a moving picture. SOLUTION: This electronic camera 1 is equipped with a release switch 11 for designating to take a still picture, a release switch 15 for designating the start and the stop of taking the moving picture, a memory control circuit 37 for recording a picture in a memory card 38, and a system controller 41 controlling the circuit 37 to record the moving picture in the memory card 38 in accordance with the designation to take moving picture by the switch 15, and also to take still picture with higher quality than the moving picture and similarly record it in the memory card 38 when it is designated to take the still picture by the switch 11 at the time of taking the moving picture.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic camera capable of taking not only a still image but also a moving image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, as the capacity of a semiconductor memory as a recording medium has increased and the processing speed of photographed image data has been improved, not only still images but also moving images can be photographed. Various possible electronic cameras have been commercialized.

[0003]

Generally, at the time of the above-described moving image shooting function, a moving image is not required to have a higher definition than a still image. Since the amount of image information becomes enormous and the time during which a moving image can be continuously captured is limited, almost all models capture a moving image at a lower definition than a still image. This is usually done.

[0004] Therefore, if there is a desired shutter chance even during shooting of a moving image, especially as a still image, a desired timing is searched for one frame at a time when the moving image is reproduced later. There is no other way than to print out the searched image or to copy the image data with a data processing device such as a personal computer to make it independent as still image data. There was a problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to reliably obtain a high-definition still image without missing a shutter chance even during shooting of a moving image. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic camera capable of performing such operations.

[0006]

According to the first aspect of the present invention,
First instruction means for instructing the photographing of a still image, second instruction means for instructing start and stop of moving image photographing, recording means for recording an image, and moving image photographing instruction by the second instruction means A moving image is recorded in the recording means in response to the instruction, and when an instruction is given by the first instruction means at the time of photographing the moving image, a still image is photographed with a higher image quality than the moving image and recorded in the recording means. Recording control means for causing

[0007] With this configuration, even when a moving image having a relatively low image quality per image is being captured, a high-quality still image is captured by the first instruction means, and the moving image is captured. Of these, a high-definition still image can be obtained at the shutter timing considered to be particularly important.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, the recording control means records the still image in the recording means as being independent of the moving image.

With such a configuration, in addition to the effect of the first aspect of the present invention, it is not necessary to manage a still image and a moving image having different pixel numbers as one file. In addition, control during reproduction becomes easier.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the recording control means recognizes the free space of the recording means, and causes the recording means to perform recording by the first instruction means. The number of still images that can be output is output.

According to this structure, in addition to the operation of the first aspect of the present invention, a still image which can be taken during the shooting of a moving image and reliably recorded in the recording means from the free space of the recording means. Since the number of remaining images can be known, it is possible to prevent the user from taking a still image unnecessarily and wasting the capacity of the recording unit, thereby preventing the recording of the still image from becoming impossible at an important shutter chance.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an external configuration of the electronic camera 1 according to the embodiment from the rear side. A lens, an optical finder window, a strobe, and the like are provided on a front side (not shown) of a substantially cubic camera body 10. An AF transmission / reception window, a self-timer lamp, and the like are provided.

On the upper surface of the camera body 10, for example, a release switch (SW) 11, a guide panel 12, and a mode setting switch (SW) 13 are provided as first instruction means for instructing photographing of a still image. Is done.

The guide panel 12 is composed of, for example, a monochrome segment type liquid crystal display panel having a backlight, and is designated at that time according to the setting state of various modes and the remaining capacity of the recording medium. The number of images that can be taken in the image quality mode, the remaining amount of the battery serving as a power supply, and the like are displayed as numerical values, symbols, symbols, and the like.

The mode setting switch 13 is for setting the image quality mode,
It consists of key switches for setting various shooting modes such as a still image shooting / moving image shooting mode and a custom function.

On the back of the camera body 10, a power switch (SW) 14 and a second
For example, the release switch 15, the optical finder 16, the TFT-LCD panel 17, and the L
A CD display switch (SW) 18 is provided.

The power switch 14 is composed of a slide switch of a return type.
It is set to switch off, and in a power-on state, a recording mode for automatically taking an image is set.

The release switch 15 is for operating the start and end of moving image shooting. To prevent erroneous operation, a switch (SW) guard 15a protruding in a square ring shape around the circular switch is provided. Provide.

The optical finder 16 uses the above-mentioned TFT-LC
This is used when the D panel 17 is not used as an EVF (Electronic View Finder). A strobe indicator 19 having a built-in green LED lamp, for example, which indicates that the strobe has been charged, flashes in a close position, and flashes during movie shooting. For example, a moving image shooting indicator 20 having a red LED lamp therein is provided, and even when the optical viewfinder 16 is looked into, or the TFT-LCD panel 17
, The lighting / flashing state of these indicators 19 and 20 can be visually recognized.

The TFT-LCD panel 17 is a color TFT-LCD panel having a backlight, for example, a diagonal size of 2 inches and about 200,000 pixels.
LCD display switch 18 in power-on state (recording mode)
Is operated as an EVF, and when the LCD display switch 18 is operated in a power-off state, the mode automatically switches to a reproduction mode, and an image read from a memory card, which will be described later, which is a recording medium. Display data.

Further, a media slot cover 21 for inserting and removing a memory card for recording image data is provided from the right end side surface to the front side of the camera body 10.

Next, a specific circuit configuration in the electronic camera 1 is illustrated in FIG.

In the figure, the optical lens system 3 is in the recording mode.
1 forms an optical image of a subject on a CCD 32 which is an image pickup device, and outputs the output of the CCD 32 to an A / D converter 33.
The image processing circuit 34 digitizes each pixel in
Sent to

The image processing circuit 34 includes an A / D converter 3
The image data of the digital value sent from 3 is sent to the buffer memory 35 after performing pixel thinning processing or the like as appropriate under the control of the system controller 41.

The buffer memory 35 stores bitmap image data for a plurality of frames, and the individual image data stored in the buffer memory 35 is stored in a compression circuit 36 as needed in a predetermined file format, for example, JPEG. The file is compressed and converted into a file.
7 is written to a memory card 38 which is a recording medium of the electronic camera 1 and which is detachably mounted.

At this time, the TFT-LCD panel 17
Is used as the EVF, the buffer memory 35
, Image data having a greatly reduced number of pixels is read out to the display control circuit 40, and the display control circuit 40 displays and drives the TFT-LCD panel 17 on the basis of the image data, so that the content captured by the CCD 32 is displayed. Is displayed in real time.

On the other hand, in the reproduction mode, the memory card 3
8 is selectively read out by the memory control circuit 37 by the memory control circuit 37, decompressed by the decompression circuit 39 in a procedure opposite to the processing by the compression circuit 36, and decompressed into a bitmap format. Stored in the buffer memory 35.

The image data stored in the buffer memory 35 is read out to the display control circuit 40 and the display control circuit 4
0 is a TFT-LCD panel 1 based on this image data.
By driving the display 7, the recorded image is reproduced and displayed.

The operations of the CCD 32, A / D converter 33, image processing circuit 34, buffer memory 35, compression circuit 36, memory control circuit 37, decompression circuit 39, and display control circuit 40 are all controlled by the system controller 41.
Has overall control.

The system controller 41 controls the operation of all the circuits of the electronic camera 1. The system controller 41 is also connected to a strobe control circuit 42, a key switch (SW) unit 43, and the guide panel 12, and controls them.

Under the control of the system controller 41, the strobe control circuit 42 flashes the strobe 44 during still image shooting.

The key switch unit 43 includes a release switch 11 for photographing a still image, a mode setting switch 13, a power switch 14, a release switch 15 for photographing a moving image,
And an LCD display switch 18 for directly transmitting the operation signal to the system controller 41.

The guide panel 16 displays and outputs various operation states of the electronic camera 1 based on a drive control signal from the system controller 41 as described above.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described.

Here, the number of effective pixels of the CCD 32 is set to 80
And XGA (1
SVGA (80 x 224 x 768 pixels)
0 × 600 pixels, 480,000 pixels in total, VGA (640 × 4
It is possible to select from three image qualities of 80 pixels (310,000 pixels in total), and only 1/4 VGA (320 × 240 pixels of 80,000 pixels in total) image quality when shooting moving images (30 frames / sec., Maximum continuous 30 seconds). No other choice shall be made.

The image data file of the still image is JPEG
In the format, the movie image data file is Motion JPE
Each is recorded on the memory card 38 in the G format.

FIG. 3 mainly shows the concept of the processing performed by the system controller 41 when the electronic camera 1 shoots a moving image, and a description of parts not related to the gist of the present invention will be omitted.

However, at first, the system controller 41 operates the memory control circuit 37 to operate the memory card 3.
8 (step S01).

As a result of this search, M image data of a moving image (M is the upper limit of the number of photographed moving images, for example, 30
Frame / second, "90" for a maximum continuous 30 seconds
It is determined whether or not there is a free space for recording “0”) (step S02).

At this time, the data capacity per image uses the average value of the above １ ／ VGA image quality. If it is determined that the necessary free space cannot be secured as a result of the search, Since it is not possible to shoot a moving image, for example, in the state where the TFT-LCD panel 17 is displayed as an EVF, a guide such as “Movie cannot be shot because of insufficient memory capacity” is displayed at the bottom of the screen. Display a message or use TFT-
When the LCD panel 17 is not used as an EVF, the display corresponding to the memory card 38 is blinked on the guide panel 12 to display that there is no free space (step S03).

If it is determined in step S02 that the free space of the memory card 38 is sufficient for shooting a moving image, then the actual free space obtained by the search is used to calculate the M moving images for the M images. The capacity that is assumed to be used in the image data is subtracted, and the number of still images n of still image data that can be shot based on the image quality set in the shooting mode of the still image at that time is subtracted from the difference capacity. Is calculated, and the result is displayed (step S04).

This is, for example, TFT-LC as EVF.
While the D panel 17 is being displayed, a guide message such as "You can take XX still images while shooting a movie" is displayed at the bottom of the screen, or a TFT-LCD panel is displayed. In a state in which 17 is not used as an EVF, a numerical value corresponding to “xx” in the guide message is blinked on the guide panel 12.

Thereafter, after setting the counter value m for counting the number of shot moving pictures to the initial value "1" (step S05), the start of moving picture shooting is instructed by operating the release switch 15 of the key switch section 43. It is waited for to be performed (step S06).

The processing of steps S01 to S05 is originally to be performed as an initial setting when the power is turned on in the recording mode in which the power switch 14 is operated. This is shown as a process prior to the following description of the actual moving image shooting operation.

When it is determined in step S06 that the release switch 15 for instructing the start of the moving image has been operated, shooting with a 1/4 VGA image quality is immediately executed (step S07).

This measures the distance to the subject image at that time, measures the proper exposure, and at the same time adjusts the proper white balance to drive the CCD 32 to obtain image data. The obtained image data is digitized by the A / D converter 33 for each of the constituent pixels, and after being subjected to pixel thinning by the image processing circuit 34 so that the image quality becomes 1/4 VGA, the image data is stored in the buffer memory 35. . The image data stored in the buffer memory 35 is subjected to data compression based on a predetermined file format by a compression circuit 36 to be converted into a file, and thereafter, a moving image file (motion JPEG) is stored in a memory card 38 by a memory control circuit 37. ) Is written (step S08).

Thereafter, after the count value m is updated and set to "+1" (step S09), it is determined whether or not the release switch 11 for photographing a still image has been operated during the moving image photographing (step S10), or It is continuously determined whether or not the release switch 15 has been operated again to end the shooting of the moving image (step S11).

If it is determined that none of these operations has been performed, the updated set count value m is set to the upper limit M
It is determined whether or not the moving image shooting should be stopped based on whether or not the moving image shooting speed has exceeded the upper limit M (step S12). 1 /
After adjusting the time for the elapse of 30 seconds (step S1
3) Return to the processing from step S07 again.

In this way, by repeatedly executing the processing of steps S07 to S13, the moving image is shot while the count value m is updated and set.

When the release switch 11 for photographing a still image is operated during the photographing of a moving image, the release switch 11 is determined in step S10, and the following processing is performed together with the operation of photographing the moving image.

That is, after confirming that the number n of still images that can be shot is not "0" (step S1).
4) High-quality still image shooting is performed according to the image quality (XGA, SVGA, or VGA) set in the still image shooting mode at that time (step S15), and the obtained image data is stored in the memory card 38 as described above. It is written as a still image file (JPEG) different from the moving image file (step S16).

Thereafter, the number n of still images that can be photographed is set to "-1" for recording on the memory card 38 (step S17), and the number n of images that are updated and set is displayed (step S17). S18).

This is substantially the same as the processing in step S04, for example, in the state where the TFT-LCD panel 17 is displayed as an EVF, the message “Moving picture is being recorded. A guide message such as "You can take a picture", or when the TFT-LCD panel 17 is not used as an EVF, the guide panel 12 corresponds to "XX" in the above guide message. The value to be blinked is displayed, and after this processing accident, the flow returns to the processing from step S07 again.

By taking a high-quality still image at any time during the shooting of a moving image as described above, when the number n of still images that can be shot becomes “0”, it is possible to shoot still images more than that. Therefore, even if it is determined in step S10 that the release switch 11 has been operated, this is confirmed in step S14 and the above-described steps S15 to S15 are performed.
Without executing the process of step 17, the fact is displayed directly in step S18.

In this case, in the state where the TFT-LCD panel 17 is displayed as the EVF, the expression is changed from the previous guide message at the lower part of the screen to "moving picture is being taken. You can't take a picture. "

In step S12, it is determined that the counter value m of the number of shots has exceeded the upper limit M, or in step S11, it is determined that the release switch 15 has been operated again to end the shooting of a moving image. At this point, the moving image shooting operation ends, and the memory card 38
Post-processing of the moving image file written into the file, for example, writing the number of image data of the entire file, creating a thumbnail image representing the moving image file, and the like (step S19)
Thus, this process ends, and the process returns to the process from step S01.

As described above, even during the shooting of a moving image having a relatively low image quality, the release switch 11 for the still image is used.
By operating, a high-quality still image can be captured, and a high-definition still image can be recorded on the memory card 38 at a shutter timing considered to be particularly important.

At this time, since the image file of the still image is recorded as a file independent of the moving image file, it is not necessary to combine a still image and a moving image having different pixel numbers into one file, and the subsequent management is easy. Become.

When photographing a still image, a TFT
-In order to simultaneously display the number of still images that can be further captured on the LCD panel 17 or the guide panel 12, the user of the electronic camera 1 captures still images in vain and wastes the free space of the memory card 38. In addition, it is possible to prevent a situation in which a still image cannot be recorded due to an important shutter chance in advance.

In the above-described embodiment, when an instruction to shoot a still image in the middle of shooting a moving image is given, the shooting is executed with the image quality set in the shooting mode of the still image at that time. , The highest image quality may be selected.

The image file formats of moving images and still images and the types of recording media are not limited to those of the above-described embodiment. For example, still images are recorded in bitmap format, and moving images are recorded in MPEG format. Alternatively, a large-capacity hard disk device, magneto-optical disk device, or the like may be used instead of the memory card 38 as a recording medium.

In addition, the present invention can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the gist thereof.

[0064]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a high-quality still image can be captured by the first instruction unit even when a moving image with a relatively low image quality is being captured per image. Therefore, a high-definition still image can be obtained at the shutter timing considered to be particularly important even during moving image shooting.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect of the first aspect of the present invention, it is not necessary to manage a still image and a moving image having different pixel numbers as one file. Management and control during reproduction become easier.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect of the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to take a picture during the moving picture photographing from the free space of the recording means and to surely record it in the recording means. Since the number of remaining still images can be known, the user can take a shot of the still image in vain and waste the capacity of the recording unit, thereby preventing the recording of the still image from becoming impossible at an important shutter chance.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an exemplary perspective view showing an external configuration of a back side of an electronic camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing processing contents of the operation according to the embodiment;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Electronic camera 10 ... Camera main body 11 ... Release switch (for still images) 12 ... Guide panel 13 ... Mode setting switch 14 ... Power switch 15 ... Release switch (for moving images) 15a ... Switch guard 16 ... Optical finder 17 ... TFT- LCD panel 18 LCD display switch 19 Strobe indicator 20 Movie shooting indicator 21 Media slot cover 31 Optical lens system 32 CCD 33 A / D converter 34 Image processing circuit 35 Buffer memory 36 Compression circuit 37 ... memory control circuit 38 ... memory card 39 ... extension circuit 40 ... display control circuit 41 ... system controller 42 ... strobe control circuit 43 ... key switch unit 44 ... strobe

Claims (3)

[Claims] A first instruction unit for instructing a still image photographing; a second instruction unit for instructing start and stop of moving image photographing; a recording unit for recording an image; A moving image is recorded in the recording unit in response to a moving image shooting instruction by the user, and a still image is shot with higher image quality than the moving image when the first instruction unit instructs the moving image shooting. An electronic camera, comprising: recording control means for causing the recording means to record. 2. The electronic camera according to claim 1, wherein the recording control unit records the still image in the recording unit as being independent of a moving image. 3. The recording control means according to claim 1, wherein said recording control means recognizes the free space of said recording means and outputs the number of still images which can be recorded on said recording means by said first instruction means. Electronic camera according to 1.