JP2001008142A - Electronic camera - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain reliability for the use of the electronic camera by stopping the recording of picture data to be executed while driving a rotational driving device when the voltage of a power supply is dropped to less than an allowable level and recording the image data in a semiconductor memory so as to continue image pickup. SOLUTION: A memory card device 303 and a hard disk device 302 are prepared as recording parts in a recording medium. A system control part 50 is provided with a power supply monitoring function 501 for monitoring the voltage of a power supply 80, a recording medium selecting function 506 for recording picture data in a memory card when the voltage of a battery is a prescribed value or less and a data movement control function 503 for moving and recording the picture data recorded in the memory card to/in a hard disk when the voltage of the battery exceeds the prescribed value.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic camera for recording captured image data on a recording medium.
This camera is especially effective for portable use.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A so-called electronic camera has been developed in which an optical image of a subject is photoelectrically converted by an imaging device, captured as digital image data, and this image data is compressed and recorded on a recording medium. By the way, recently, a recording / reproducing apparatus which can use a large-capacity recording medium (disk) such as a hard disk apparatus and a magneto-optical disk apparatus has been developed, and the size and weight of the apparatus have been reduced. It has been considered to incorporate the playback device into an electronic camera.

[0003]

However, since the above-mentioned recording / reproducing apparatus has a rotary drive for rotating the disk, attention is paid to power consumption for operating the rotary drive. There is a need to.

[0004] In particular, the rotary drive consumes a large amount of electric power during the period from when the disk in a stationary state is started to be driven to rotate until the disk reaches a certain speed and stabilizes. However, due to the purpose of use of the electronic camera, the rotary driving device has to take a form of repeatedly starting and stopping frequently. As a result, in this type of electronic camera, the life of a battery serving as a power supply tends to be significantly shortened. It is conceivable to stop the repetition of the start / stop of the rotary drive device and always keep the rotary drive device in an operating state. However, in this case, power is wasted.
If the voltage of the battery drops, the rotation drive device cannot maintain a constant rotation of the disk, making it impossible to perform data recording / reproduction processing and cannot continue imaging.

[0005] Therefore, the present invention stops recording of image data while operating the rotary driving device and records the image data in a semiconductor memory when the voltage of the power supply falls below an allowable level, so that imaging can be continued. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic camera.

[0006]

The present invention has achieved the following means for achieving the above objects and objects. The characteristic means other than the following will be clarified in the embodiment.

A first recording medium using a non-volatile semiconductor memory, and a second recording medium having a larger capacity than the first recording medium and performing a recording operation by being driven by a rotary driving means. Power supply monitoring means for monitoring the voltage of a battery serving as a power supply; and first recording for recording image data on the first recording medium when the voltage of the battery is equal to or less than a predetermined value. When the voltage of the battery exceeds a predetermined value, the image data recorded on the first recording medium is moved to and recorded on the second recording medium by the control unit and the power supply monitoring unit. And second recording control means.

[0008]

(First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an electronic camera according to an embodiment of the present invention. This electronic camera is roughly divided into, for example, an imaging unit 10, an image data processing unit 20, an image data recording processing unit 30, an image data display unit 40, a system control unit 50, an operation unit 60, a guide display unit 70
And a power supply unit 80.

An image pickup unit 10 includes an image pickup lens 101, a CCD image pickup device 102, an analog / digital (A / D) converter 10
3. Image processing unit 1 that performs white balance and gamma correction
05 etc.

The image data processing unit 20 includes, for example, a buffer memory 201 capable of temporarily storing a plurality of image data, one image data being processed by the image processing unit 105 as one frame, and output image data of the buffer memory 201. , And a decompression processing unit 203 that decompresses compressed image data from a recording medium, which will be described later, and supplies the decompressed image data to a buffer memory 201.

The image data recording processing unit 30 includes a medium control unit 301, a hard disk device 302, and a memory card device 303. Hard disk drive 302
Can, for example, record data on a disk having a capacity of 1 GB, read data from the disk, and reproduce the data. This hard disk device 30
With respect to 2, the compressed image data is supplied from the medium control unit 301 during recording, and the reproduced data of the hard disk device 302 is supplied to the decompression processing unit 203 via the medium control unit 301 during reproduction.

The memory card device 303 is, for example, 4 MB
It is possible to record data on a memory card having a capacity of, and read and reproduce data from the memory card. To the memory card device 303, compressed image data is given from the medium control unit 301 at the time of recording, and reproduced data of the memory card device 303 is transmitted to the decompression processing unit 203 via the medium control unit 301 at the time of reproduction. Given.

It is also possible to read data from the memory card and move the data to the hard disk via the medium control unit 301.

The above-mentioned memory card device 303 and hard disk device 302 are unitized, can be attached to and detached from the electronic camera body, and can be easily replaced.

The image data display unit 40 includes a display control unit 40
1 and a liquid crystal display panel 402. The display control unit 401 fetches image data to be recorded at the time of imaging from the buffer memory 201 and supplies it to the liquid crystal display panel 402, so that the user can view the image at the time of imaging. Also, at the time of reproduction, the display control unit 401 fetches the reproduced image data from the buffer memory 201 and supplies it to the liquid crystal display panel 402 (which functions as an electronic viewfinder (EVF)).

The system control section 50 is a section for controlling the entire system in order to effectively realize various functions of the electronic camera. Only the functions particularly required in the present invention are shown in the drawings. Is shown. The characteristic operation of the system control unit 50 will be described later using a flowchart.

The operation unit 60 is provided on, for example, a side surface or an upper surface of the camera body, and can be operated by a user. The operation unit 60 includes a power switch, a release switch, various adjustment switches, and the like. The operation information here is read by the system control unit 50.

The guide display section 70 is composed of a liquid crystal panel, and is provided, for example, on the upper surface of the camera body. The guide display section 70 performs a guide message when the viewfinder (EVF) is off, and displays a battery state, It displays the image recording destination (disk or memory card). The display control is performed by the system control unit 50.

The power supply section 80 includes a battery (battery) 801.
And a power supply circuit section 802 that controls the output and supplies it to each circuit as an appropriate voltage. The power supply voltage state of the power supply unit 80 is monitored by the power supply monitoring function 501 of the system control unit 50.

Next, the characteristic operation of the electronic camera according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 2 shows the operation of a function for determining whether or not there is free space in a medium (a disk in a hard disk device or a card memory in a memory card device), and the operation of a function of moving and recording data of a memory card to a hard disk. This is shown in a flowchart. This function is provided in the control unit 50 of FIG.
02, data movement control function 503.

When the power is turned on (steps S1 and S1)
2), a check of the free space of the disk and the card memory is started (step S3). If there is no free space in the disk (step S4), it is determined whether there is free space in the card memory (step S5). If there is no free space in the card memory, the image data display unit 4
0, or the guide display unit 70 displays an X mark on both the disk and the card memory, for example, disk .times., Card memory .times.x (step S7).

If there is a free space in the card memory in step S5, a display such as, for example, a disc .times., A card memory .largecircle. Is obtained (step S6).

If there is free space in the disk in step S4, it is determined whether the battery voltage is lower than a predetermined value (step S8). If the battery voltage is equal to or lower than the predetermined value, a warning is displayed (step S9). This display is also performed on the image data display unit 40 or the guide display unit 70. This display is performed, for example, in the form of blinking of a character “BAT”.

In step S8, if the battery voltage is equal to or higher than the predetermined value, it is determined whether the flag of the flag register secured in the nonvolatile memory in the system control unit 50 is, for example, F = "1". .
The fact that this flag is “1” means that image data to be moved from the non-volatile memory of the memory card of the memory card device 203 to the hard disk is temporarily saved and recorded.

If the flag is F = 1, the image data recorded in the non-volatile memory of the memory card is moved to the hard disk, and then the image data is recorded in the non-volatile memory of the memory card. Clear Also, the flag stored in the system control unit is set to F = "0".

Next, it is determined whether or not a release operation has been performed (step S13). If the release operation has been performed, the flow shifts to imaging processing (step S1).
4). For the flowchart of the imaging process, see FIG.
Will be described.

It is determined whether or not the power switch has been turned off after the end of the imaging process (step S15). If the power switch has been turned off, the process returns to step S2, and if it has been turned on, the process returns to step S3.

Next, the operation of the imaging process will be described with reference to FIG.

When the imaging process starts (step S2)
0), first, an auto focus (AF) process (step S
21), auto iris (AE) processing (step S2)
2), an automatic white balance (AWB) process (step S23) is performed, and an image is captured (step S2).
4). The image data captured after the imaging is subjected to an image compression process (step S25), and is created as data for recording. This function is shown as an image compression processing control function 504 in the system control unit 50 of FIG.

Here, it is determined whether or not the battery voltage is equal to or lower than a predetermined value (step S26). If the battery voltage is equal to or lower than the predetermined value, the image data is recorded in the nonvolatile memory of the memory card (step S27). This battery voltage determination processing function is shown as a power supply monitoring function 501 in the system control unit 50 of FIG. A function for selectively writing image data to the memory card is shown as a recording medium selection function 506.

When the image data is recorded on the memory card, F = "1" is written into a flag register prepared in the system control unit 50 (step S).
28), a warning that the battery needs to be replaced is displayed (step S29). As the flag register, a non-volatile memory is used so that data contents can be held even when the battery is exhausted.

If it is determined in step S26 that the battery voltage is higher than the predetermined value, the hard disk drive is driven to execute image data recording on the hard disk (step S30).

As described above, in this electronic camera,
If the battery voltage is high enough to drive the hard disk drive and record image data on the hard disk, record the image data on the hard disk; if not, temporarily record it on the nonvolatile memory of the memory card I am trying to do it. For this reason, even when recording on the hard disk becomes impossible due to a shortage of battery voltage, shooting can be continued further, and acquisition errors of important scenes and the like are eliminated. As a result, the reliability of the product can be improved.

When the image data is recorded in a state in which the image data is temporarily saved as described above, the flag register of the system control unit 50 indicates that F = "".
Therefore, when the battery is replaced or charged, the battery voltage becomes sufficient to drive the hard disk device and record image data on the hard disk. In this case, the contents of the flag are automatically determined, and the image data recorded in the nonvolatile memory of the memory card can be moved to a large-capacity hard disk.

When reading and reproducing image data from a hard disk or a memory card, the image signal processing control function 505 controls the decompression processing unit 203 to decode the image data.

In the electronic camera described above, the status of the camera can be displayed on the image data display section 40 or the guide display section 70. The display contents indicate the state of battery exhaustion and the location where image data is recorded (hard disk or memory card).
Various methods such as blinking display and mark display are possible. In this display mode, a display indicating the state of consumption of the battery and the identification of the current recording location of the image data may be simultaneously performed, or any one of the displays may be performed.

(Features of Embodiment) (1) The electronic camera described in the embodiment includes a first recording medium (memory card of the memory card device 303) using a nonvolatile semiconductor memory, The second recording medium (the hard disk of the hard disk device 302), which has a larger capacity than the first recording medium and performs a recording operation by being driven by the rotary driving unit, and a battery (80) serving as a power supply
Power supply monitoring means (power supply monitoring function 50) for monitoring the voltage of 1)
1) If the battery voltage is equal to or lower than a predetermined value by the power supply monitoring means, first recording control means (recording medium selection function 50) for recording image data on the first recording medium.
6) when the power supply monitoring means determines that the battery voltage exceeds a predetermined value, moves and records the image data recorded on the first recording medium to the second recording medium. (Data movement control function 503).

(2) Display means (guide display unit 70 or image data display unit 40) for displaying at least one of the image data recording states of the first and second recording media as a result of monitoring by the power supply monitoring unit. ) Is further provided.

(3) The first recording control means writes a predetermined flag (F = “1”) to a flag register when image data is recorded on the first recording medium.

(4) The second recording control means, when a predetermined flag is written in the flag register, converts the image data recorded on the first recording medium (memory card) into the second recording medium. Recording media (hard disk)
Is recorded.

(5) The second recording control means, after moving and recording the image data recorded on the first recording medium (memory card) on the second recording medium (hard disk), And a predetermined flag written in is erased.

[0043]

According to the present invention, when the voltage of the power supply drops below an allowable level, the recording process of the image data while operating the rotary driving device is stopped, the image data is recorded in the semiconductor memory, and the imaging can be continued. In this way, reliability in use can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an electronic camera according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart shown to explain an operation example of the electronic camera according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart shown to explain characteristics at the time of imaging in the operation of the electronic camera according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 imaging unit 20 image data processing unit 30 image data recording processing unit 40 image data display unit 50 system control unit 60 operation unit 70 guide display unit 80 power supply unit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04N 5/85 H04N 5/907 B 5/907 5/781 510K

Claims (4)

[Claims] A first recording medium using a non-volatile semiconductor memory; and a second recording medium having a larger capacity than the first recording medium and performing a recording operation by being driven by a rotary driving unit. A medium, a power supply monitoring means for monitoring a voltage of a battery serving as a power supply, and a first power supply monitoring means for recording image data on the first recording medium when the voltage of the battery is equal to or less than a predetermined value. When the voltage of the battery exceeds a predetermined value, the image data recorded on the first recording medium is moved to the second recording medium by the recording control means and the power supply monitoring means. An electronic camera, comprising: second recording control means for recording. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a display unit for displaying at least one of a monitoring result of the power supply monitoring unit and a recording state of the image data on the first and second recording media. Electronic camera. 3. The electronic camera according to claim 1, wherein said first recording control means writes a predetermined flag into a flag register when image data is recorded on said first recording medium. 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second recording control means moves the image data recorded on the first recording medium to the second recording medium when a predetermined flag is written in the flag register. 4. The electronic camera according to claim 3, wherein recording is performed.