JP2003259161A - Device and method for imaging - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device and a method for imaging which facilitate an optimum way of discriminatingly using a still picture and a moving picture according to photographic conditions with a small feeling of physical disorder when still picture photography and moving picture photography are switched. <P>SOLUTION: The imaging device equipped with a display means capable of displaying the still picture and moving picture makes the display means display a finder picture shown in the figure and also displays a frame as an index indicating a moving picture imaging area on a finder picture. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus capable of shooting still images and moving images, and more particularly to displaying finder images.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the performance and price of personal computers have been dramatically improved, and an environment in which a large number of still images or moving images with high definition at a consumer level can be handled easily and in large numbers is becoming widespread. On the other hand, the progress of imaging equipment has been remarkable, and by the increase in the number of pixels of input devices and the increase in capacity of recording media, products capable of recording high-definition still images and simultaneously recording moving images have been realized.

Conventionally, as this type of product, a product form in which a digital still camera and a digital video camera are integrated has been proposed. For example, a multi-pixel CCD with 1 million pixels or more is mounted, a high-definition still image is captured and recorded in a solid-state memory, and on the other hand, a part of the moving image data is cut out from this high-definition image, and SD standard Meeting)
Alternatively, a standard moving image (720 × 4) conforming to the MPEG2 standard
The image is taken at 80 pixels / frame.

Further, a product has been proposed in which a multi-pixel CCD is mounted to capture a high-definition still image, and at the same time, a moving image is recorded and reproduced as a simple moving image in a solid-state memory by reducing the frame rate. .

[0005]

By increasing the number of pixels of the CCD, high definition of a still image can be achieved. However, for moving images, the pixel information of all multi-pixel CCDs is
Even if the data is read out every 1/60 (seconds), the operation limit of the CCD device itself is exceeded due to high-speed sampling processing, delay in charge transfer time, and the like, and the processing fails.

Therefore, when a moving image is read from a multi-pixel CCD, only the readable range is selectively extracted without reading all the pixel information. For example,
When a multi-pixel CCD of 1 million pixels or more is used, the central portion of this area, that is, the peripheral areas of the upper, lower, left, and right, are not read out, but only 1280 × 960 pixels in the central portion are read out and used as moving image information It is a thing.

As the number of pixels in the CCD device further increases, the difference in angle of view between a still image and a moving image becomes larger and larger. If you try to shoot a still image while shooting a video in front of the subject, or start shooting a video while shooting a still image, you will inevitably have to take the trouble of significantly modifying the composition of both, and There is a problem that smooth shooting is impaired.

The present invention has been made under such a circumstance, and there is little discomfort when switching between still image shooting and moving image shooting, and it is easy to optimally use still images and moving images according to shooting conditions. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image pickup apparatus and an image pickup method capable of achieving the above.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, in the present invention, an image pickup apparatus is configured as in the following (1) to (6), and an image pickup method is set forth in the following (7) and (8). Configure as follows.

(1) An image pickup means capable of picking up a still image and a moving image, a display means capable of displaying a still image and a moving image, a finder image displayed on the display means, and an index indicating a moving image pickup area in the finder image. An image pickup apparatus comprising: a control unit for displaying.

(2) In the image pickup device according to (1), the index is an image pickup device.

(3) In the image pickup device described in (1), the index is a brightness difference.

(4) In the image pickup device described in (1) above, the index indicates whether or not there is a color.

(5) In the image pickup device according to any one of (1) to (4), the control means displays the index on the display means when a still image pickup trigger is given. An imaging device that stops the display, displays a captured still image, and stops the display of the index and displays the captured moving image on the display unit when there is a moving image capturing trigger.

(6) The image pickup apparatus according to any one of (1) to (5) above, which is provided with a recording / reproducing means for recording and reproducing a still image and a moving image picked up by the image pickup means.

(7) An image pickup method in an image pickup apparatus having display means capable of displaying a still image and a moving image, wherein the display means displays a viewfinder image and an index indicating a moving image pickup area in the viewfinder image. Imaging method to be displayed.

(8) In the image pickup method described in (7), when there is a still image pickup trigger, the display means stops displaying the index, displays the picked-up still image, and displays a moving image. An imaging method for stopping the display of the index and displaying the captured moving image on the display means when an imaging trigger occurs.

[0018]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to examples of an image recording / reproducing apparatus. It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the form of the apparatus, but can be implemented in the form of a method supported by the description of the embodiments.

[0019]

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an "imaging recording / reproducing apparatus" which is Embodiment 1. The components of the figure will be described. 101 is a lens unit, 102 is an image pickup process, 103 is a camera signal process, 104 is a standard image conversion, 105 is a switch, 106 is a memory, 107 is a memory control, 108 is a filter, 109 is a filter control, 1
10 is a CPU, 111 is a moving image recording / reproducing process, 112 is a moving image recording medium, 113 is a still image recording / reproducing process, 114
Is a still image recording medium, 115 is display signal processing, 116
Is a display screen, 117 is a line input / output process, 118 is a line input / output terminal, and 119 is a data bus.

The operation of the configuration of FIG. 1 will be described. A series of focus control, zoom control, aperture control, and the like are performed on a subject (not shown) via the lens unit 101.
The image pickup process 102 includes a solid-state image pickup element (hereinafter, referred to as CCD), and photoelectrically converts the image formed on the image pickup surface by the lens unit 101 and having the light amount adjusted to output a video signal. Here, the mounted CCD is a multi-pixel type CCD of effective pixels 1280 × 960 pixels corresponding to high-definition still image shooting. The camera signal processing 103 digitizes the video signal and performs predetermined camera signal processing such as gain adjustment, gamma correction, and white balance adjustment.

The standard video conversion 104 is a high-definition video (12
80 × 960) is down-converted into a standard video signal (720 × 480).
Standard video signal recording is selected on the A side and high definition video signal recording is selected on the B side.

When capturing and recording a standard moving image, the standard moving image is connected to the A side, and the high-definition image is down-converted into a standard image and output. On the other hand, when capturing and recording a high-definition still image, it is connected to the B side.

The memory 106 in the next stage is a memory capable of storing high-definition image data in a plurality of frames, and 107 is a memory control for performing address control of this memory. CPU11
0 is a control center of the entire system.

The operation of recording a high-definition still image will be described. In this case, the switch 105 is connected to the B side, and the data of effective pixels 1280 × 960 is once written in the memory 106. 12 read out from the memory 106
The 80 × 960 image data is input to the filter 108, but the data is not processed and is output as it is. At the time of recording, the still image recording / reproducing 113 compresses the input digital image data by the JPEG method or the like and records it on the still image recording medium 114 such as a flash memory.

The operation of recording the standard moving image will be described. In this case, the switch 105 is connected to the A side, and the standard image conversion 104 downsamples the input high-definition image data to 1/2 in the horizontal and vertical directions, and outputs the standard image conversion output of the effective pixels 720 × 480. The image data is output and written in the memory 106. Next, the signal read from the memory 106 is
The moving image data is compressed and recorded on the recording medium 112 such as a disk or a magnetic tape.

Next, the display when a high-definition still image or moving image is captured will be described.

The display signal processing 115 D / A converts the digital image data read from the memory 106 and drives the liquid crystal display screen 116 to display an image. The line input / output processing 117 writes the digital image data into the memory 106 by A / D converting the analog video signal input from the terminal 118 at the time of line input, and the digital image read from the memory 106 at the time of line output. The data is D / A converted and output to the terminal 118 as an analog output.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the liquid crystal display screen 116.
This example is an example of a so-called "finder image" for confirming the range to be captured before pressing the still image capturing trigger or the moving image capturing trigger. Here, a display is provided in the display screen to simultaneously identify a high-definition still image capturing area (also referred to as an angle of view) and a standard moving image capturing area. The frame size is set to a recordable frame size by extracting a standard moving image from a high-definition still image at a predetermined frame rate.

The operation of picking up and recording a moving image and a high-definition still image according to this embodiment will be schematically described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In FIG. 3, the apparatus is activated in step 301 (abbreviated as S301 in the figure, the same applies hereinafter). After that, in step 302, when the image pickup mode is selected by image pickup recording or medium reproduction mode selection, the process proceeds to step 303, and a frame for identifying the image pickup area of the moving image and the still image is displayed on the display screen (finder image). Move to 304. In step 304, the imaging standby state is entered, and here, a trigger (recording start switch) can be applied to either a moving image or a high-definition still image. When a trigger is applied, the process moves to step 305, and when the moving image trigger is pressed, the process moves to step 306, and the frame size of the moving image that can be actually imaged and recorded is displayed on the screen at the regular frame rate and the moving image is imaged and recorded. On the other hand, if the high-definition still image trigger is pressed, the process proceeds to step 307, the frame for distinguishing the moving image and still image capturing areas on the display screen is erased, and a still image full of the display area is captured and recorded. Display on the display screen. When the image capturing / recording of a predetermined number of moving images in step 306 and the image capturing / recording of the high-definition still image in step 307 are completed, the process proceeds to step 308, the image capturing / recording is temporarily stopped, the process returns to step 304 to enter the image capturing standby state, and the display screen is displayed. The frame for distinguishing the imaging area between the moving image and the still image is displayed again. After that, step 3
The operations from 04 to step 308 are repeated.

In this embodiment, it is also possible to mutually convert a high-definition still image on a still image recording medium such as a flash memory and moving image data on a disk or magnetic tape.

The operation of recording the still image data on the moving image recording medium will be described with reference to FIG. The compressed data such as JPEG output from the still image recording medium 114 such as a flash memory is decoded by the still image recording / reproducing process 113 and 1280 ×
The pixel data of 960 is output and down-comparted by the filter 108. The filter 108 performs 1/2 down-sampling in the horizontal and vertical directions according to the recording rate of the moving image recording medium to obtain 720 × 480 pixel data, and writes this in the memory 106. After that, a predetermined moving image recording operation is performed.

On the other hand, an operation of recording moving image data on a still image recording medium will be described. The moving image data on the moving image recording medium 112 such as a disk or a magnetic tape is decoded by the moving image recording / reproducing process 111, and written in the memory 106. Subsequently, after being converted into a desired pixel size by the filter 108, compression of JPEG or the like is performed in the still image recording / reproducing process 113 and recorded in the recording medium 114 such as a flash memory.

As described above, according to this embodiment,
Since the photographer can shoot while constantly monitoring the difference in the area (composition) that can record both still images and movies, you can feel the discomfort of area (composition) reduction when switching to standard movie shooting after shooting high-definition still images. Can be reduced. However, it is possible to reduce the discomfort of enlarging the area (composition) that occurs when switching to high-definition still image shooting after shooting a moving image.

As a synergistic effect while always recognizing the view angle difference between a moving image and a still image, this makes it possible to provide the optimum use of the moving image and the still image according to the shooting conditions.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 4 is an example of a display screen of an "imaging recording / reproducing apparatus" which is Embodiment 2. In this embodiment,
On the display screen, a brightness difference is provided between the standard moving image capturing area and the other areas, so that the high-definition still image and the standard moving image area are simultaneously identified. The size of the brightness difference setting area is set to a recordable frame size by extracting a standard moving image at a predetermined frame rate from a high-definition still image, and the moving image recording area is set to a normal brightness level that is not processed at all. The luminance level of the area is displayed at half the display level.

The hardware configuration of this embodiment is the same as that of FIG. 1, so that FIG. 1 and its description will be used, and the description thereof will be omitted.

A schematic operation of image pickup and recording of a moving image and a high-definition still image in the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In FIG. 5, in step 501, the device is activated.
After that, in step 502, when the image pickup mode is selected by image pickup recording or medium reproduction mode selection, the process proceeds to step 503, and a brightness difference for identifying the image pickup area of the moving image and the still image is provided on the display screen (finder image). That is, the moving image recording area is displayed with the normal brightness level, and the other areas of the high-definition still image portion are displayed with a half of the moving image area. Then, the process proceeds to step 504 and the image pickup standby state is set. Here, a trigger (recording start switch) can be applied to either a moving image or a high-definition still image. When a trigger is applied, the process moves to step 505, and when the moving image trigger is pressed, the process moves to step 506, and the frame size of the moving image that can be actually imaged and recorded is displayed on the screen at a regular frame rate, and the moving image is imaged and recorded. On the other hand, if the high-definition still image trigger is pressed, the process proceeds to step 507 and step 50
The brightness difference provided in 4 is eliminated, and a still image that fills the display area is captured and recorded and displayed on the display screen. Step 50
Capture recording of a predetermined number of moving images in step 6, and step 5
When the image-capturing and recording of the high-definition still image in 07 is completed, the process proceeds to step 508, the image-capturing recording is temporarily stopped, the process returns to step 504, and the image-capturing standby state is set. Set up again. After that, the operations of steps 504 to 508 are repeated.

As is apparent from the above description, also in this embodiment, the same effect as that of the first embodiment can be obtained.

(Third Embodiment) FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the "imaging recording / reproducing apparatus" according to the third embodiment. In this embodiment, the image pickup recording area of the standard moving image is displayed in color,
The other areas are displayed in black and white, and the areas for moving images and still images are identified simultaneously. The size of the color portion setting area is set to a recordable frame size by extracting a standard moving image from a high-definition still image at a predetermined frame rate.

The hardware configuration of this embodiment is the same as that of FIG. 1, so that FIG. 1 and its description are used, and the description thereof is omitted here.

The operation of picking up and recording a moving image and a high-definition still image according to this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. If the image pickup mode is selected by the image pickup recording or medium reproduction mode selection in step 602 after the apparatus is started in step 601, the process moves to step 603, and the image pickup areas of the moving image and the still image are displayed on the display screen (finder image). The setting difference between the presence and absence of the color signal for identification is provided. That is, the moving image recording area is displayed in color and the other areas of the high-definition still image portion are displayed in black and white. In step 604, the imaging standby state is set, and a trigger (recording start switch) can be applied to either a moving image or a high-definition still image.

When a trigger is applied here, step 605
If the moving image trigger is pressed, the process proceeds to step 606, where the frame size of the moving image that can be actually captured and recorded is
The screen is displayed at a regular frame rate, and a moving image is captured and recorded. On the other hand, if the high-definition still image trigger is pressed, the process proceeds to step 407, the presence or absence of the color display set in step 603 is canceled, and the color still image of the full display area is captured and recorded and displayed on the screen. When the image capturing / recording of the predetermined number of moving images in step 606 and the image capturing / recording of the high-definition still image in step 607 are completed, the process proceeds to step 608, the image capturing / recording is temporarily stopped, the process returns to step 604 to enter the image capturing standby state, and the display screen is displayed. The presence / absence of color display for distinguishing the imaging areas of the moving image and the still image is displayed again. Then, step 604
Through step 608 are repeated.

As is clear from the above description, also in this embodiment, the same effect as that of the first embodiment can be obtained.

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the photographer can shoot while constantly monitoring the area (composition) difference between the still image and the moving image, you can feel the discomfort of reducing the area (composition) when switching to standard movie shooting after taking a high-definition still image. Can be reduced. However, it is possible to reduce the discomfort of enlarging the area (composition) that occurs when switching to high-definition still image shooting after shooting a moving image.

As a synergistic effect while always recognizing the angle of view generated between the moving image and the still image, it is possible to provide the optimum use of the moving image and the still image according to the shooting conditions.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a display screen example.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen in the second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the second embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the third embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

102 Imaging processing 110 CPU 116 display screen

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An image pickup unit capable of picking up a still image and a moving image, a display unit capable of displaying a still image and a moving image, a finder image displayed on the display unit, and an index indicating a moving image pickup area in the finder image. An image pickup apparatus comprising: 2. The image pickup device according to claim 1, The image pickup device, wherein the index is an index. 3. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein The imaging device, wherein the index is a brightness difference. 4. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the index is with or without color. 5. The imaging device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit stops the display of the index on the display unit when a still image capturing trigger is received, and captures the image. An image pickup apparatus, which displays the still image, and controls the display unit to stop displaying the index and display the imaged moving image when a moving image pickup trigger occurs. 6. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a recording / reproducing unit that records and reproduces a still image and a moving image captured by the image pickup unit. . 7. An image pickup method in an image pickup apparatus comprising display means capable of displaying a still image and a moving image, wherein the display means displays a viewfinder image and an index indicating a moving image pickup area in the viewfinder image. An imaging method characterized by: 8. The image pickup method according to claim 7, wherein when there is a still image pickup trigger, the display means stops displaying the index and displays the picked-up still image.
An imaging method characterized in that, when there is a moving image capturing trigger, the display means stops displaying the index and displays the captured moving image.