JPH11271850A - Video camera system, photographing method and storing medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically perform lighting control of a video light attached to a video camera from the video camera side. SOLUTION: A light control means 122 for controlling a video light 101 is provided in a video camera 121, and a lamp control circuit 104 for performing operation in accordance with the control of the light control means 122 is provided in the video light 101. Based on light control information transmitted from the video light 101 side, the lamp control circuit 104 provided in the video light 101 side is actuated and the lighting state of a lamp for illumination 102 provided in the video light 101 is automatically controlled from the video camera 121 side.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a video camera system, a photographing method, and a storage medium. The present invention relates to a video camera system that performs photographing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a power supply terminal of a video light is provided on an accessory shoe of a video camera, a power cord of the video light having a power supply terminal is attached thereto, and power is supplied from the video camera to the video light. At the same time, the on / off control of the power supply is performed to control the turning on and off of the video light.

The power on / off control described above does not automatically control the video light by judging whether the video light needs to be turned on or off, and almost no automatic control of the video light is performed. Had to determine whether or not to turn on the video light, and set it.
That is, what the video camera automatically does is turn on during shooting and turn off during shooting standby.
Only on / off control.

[0004] As a conventional example other than the above, a photographer directly operates an on / off switch provided on a video light main body to manually turn on / off the video light.

[0005]

In any case, conventionally, the lighting state of the video light is not automatically controlled in accordance with the shooting state. That is, conventionally, the control of the video light by the video camera only controls the turning on and off of the power of the video light in accordance with the change of the operation mode of the video camera at the time of shooting or shooting standby.

[0006] For this reason, the determination of turning on / off the video light and the setting operation in accordance with the shooting conditions must be performed by the photographer himself, which is troublesome for the photographer.

In view of the above problems, the present invention transmits light control information according to a shooting state from a video camera to a video light, thereby automatically controlling the lighting of a video light attached to the video camera. The goal is to be able to do so.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided a video camera system in which a video light is connected to a video camera, and the video light is used to irradiate a subject with the video light and the video camera shoots the video light. Light control means for outputting light control information for performing lighting control of the provided illumination light is provided on the video camera side, and lighting control according to the light control information sent from the light control means is performed. The lighting control circuit to perform is provided on the video light side, and the lighting control circuit controls the lighting state of the lighting light based on the light control information sent from the light control means. According to another feature of the video camera system of the present invention, the lighting control circuit controls the light emission amount of the illumination light based on the exposure information sent from the light control means, thereby controlling the light emission during the shooting. The feature is that the exposure of the camera is made appropriate.

Further, according to the video shooting method of the present invention, there is provided a light control means for outputting light control information for controlling an illumination light provided in a video light, and light control information sent from the light control means. A lighting control circuit that performs lighting control according to a video camera system, comprising: an information transmission process for transmitting light control information from the light control unit to the lighting control circuit; And controlling the lighting operation of the illumination light for controlling the lighting operation of the illumination light based on the obtained light control information. Another feature of the video shooting method of the present invention is that the light control information transmitted by the information transmitting process is exposure information, and the process of controlling the lighting operation of the illumination light includes the exposure information. It is characterized in that the light emission amount of the illumination light is controlled on the basis of this to make the exposure at the time of shooting appropriate.

[0010] The storage medium of the present invention is characterized by storing a program for causing a computer to function as each of the above means. Another feature of the storage medium of the present invention is that a program for causing a computer to execute a procedure for executing a video camera photographing method is stored.

[0011]

Since the present invention has the above technical means, the lighting state of the video light attached to the video camera is automatically controlled based on the light control information sent from the video camera side. Can be optimized, so that the photographer does not need to perform any control regarding the lighting state of the video light, and is freed from troublesome light lighting control operations.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS (First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a video system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 101 is a video light body, 102 is a lamp, 103 is a battery, 104
Is a lamp current / voltage control circuit, 111 is an accessory shoe control terminal, and 112 is an accessory shoe monitoring terminal.

Reference numeral 121 denotes a video camera body (camera unit), 122 denotes a microcomputer for controlling the video camera, 123 denotes a lens unit, 124 denotes a lens, 125 denotes an iris, 126 denotes a CCD, and 127 denotes a camera signal processing unit. .

As shown in FIG. 1, the video camera 121
Is controlled via a control terminal 111 provided in an accessory shoe connection portion provided in both the video camera 121 and the video light 101.

The control process performed on the video light 101 is performed by a current / voltage control circuit 104 mounted on the video light 101, and the control process is performed on the lamp 102 according to a light control signal transmitted from the video camera 121. Control the supply current.

The monitor terminal 112 converts the state of the control current of the current / voltage control circuit 104 into a voltage, and constantly transmits information on the control current to the microcomputer 122 of the video camera 121. Thus, the microcomputer 122 of the video camera 121
Can know that the light emission control of the lamp 102 has been correctly performed based on the light control information transmitted to the video light 101.

Next, a processing procedure in which the video camera 121 controls the lighting state of the lamp 102 of the video light 101 will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart of FIG. As shown in FIG. 2, when the control process is started, as shown in steps S201 and S202,
Microcomputer 12 for controlling video camera 121
2 monitors whether the video light 101 is attached to the video camera 121 and whether the video light 101 can be controlled from the video camera 121 side. This monitoring is
The control microcomputer 122 performs this by checking the voltage of the monitoring terminal 112.

As a result of the monitoring (determination) in step S202, if the video light 101 is connected to the video camera 121 and the light emission of the lamp 102 can be controlled, the flow advances to step S203 to calculate the exposure of the object to be photographed. .

Next, in step S204, based on the result of the exposure calculation performed in step S203, in addition to iris control, electronic shutter, and AGC control to optimize exposure, the lamp of the video light 101 is controlled. It is determined whether or not it is necessary to make 102 emit light.

If it is determined in step S204 that the lamp 012 of the video light 101 does not need to emit light, the process proceeds to step S205, and the voltage of the control terminal 111 is set to 0 [V].
The current supplied to the lamp of the video light 101 is set to “0”, and the lamp is turned off.

If it is determined in step S204 that the lamp 102 needs to emit light, the process proceeds to step S206, in which the voltage of the control terminal 111 is set to the maximum value so that the lamp 102 of the video light 101 emits light.

Next, the process proceeds to step S207, where the state of the monitoring terminal 112 is monitored. Then, the next step S20
At 8, it is determined whether or not the lamp 102 normally emits light based on the state of the monitoring terminal 112.

As a result of the determination made in step S208,
If it is determined that the light emission of the lamp 102 is abnormal, it is considered that an abnormality such as the burnout of the lamp 102, the insufficient remaining amount of the battery 103, the detachment of the video light 101 from the video camera 121, or the like has occurred. Light 102
To stop lighting.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S208 that the lamp 102 emits light normally, the process returns to the exposure calculation processing in step S203, and the above processing is repeated.

(Second Embodiment) Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The hardware configuration of the video camera system according to the second embodiment is the same as the configuration shown in the block diagram of FIG.

Steps S301 to S30 in FIG.
The processing performed in step 5 is the same as the processing in steps S201 to S205 of the flowchart in FIG. 2 described in the first embodiment. In the case of the present embodiment, if it is determined that the video light lamp 102 needs to emit light as a result of the determination in step S304 in FIG. 3, a process of setting the voltage of the control terminal 111 to an appropriate value is performed in step S306. Do.

Next, in step S307, it is determined whether or not the voltage of the control terminal 111 is within a proper value range. If the result of the determination in step S307 is not an appropriate value, it is considered that an abnormality has occurred, and the process is stopped.

On the other hand, if the result of determination in step S307 is that the voltage of the control terminal 111 is at an appropriate value, step S307 is executed.
Proceeding to 308, the state of the monitoring terminal 112 is monitored to monitor the state of exposure.

Next, in step S309, it is determined whether or not the light emission amount of the lamp 102 is appropriate based on the monitoring result in step S308. If the result of this determination is that the amount of light emission is not appropriate, the process returns to step S306 to perform processing for setting the voltage of the control terminal 111 to an appropriate value, and thereafter, repeats the above-described processing. On the other hand, step S3
If the result of determination in step 09 is that the light emission amount is appropriate, the process returns to the exposure calculation processing in step S303, and thereafter the above processing is repeated.

(Other Embodiments of the Present Invention) The present invention is applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), but is also applicable to an apparatus composed of one device. You may.

Further, in order to realize the functions of the above-described embodiments, a device connected to the above-mentioned various devices or a computer in a system is operated so as to operate various devices so as to realize the functions of the above-described embodiments. The present invention also includes programs implemented by supplying the program code of the software described above and operating the various devices according to programs stored in a computer (CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus.

In this case, the program code of the software realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the program code itself and means for supplying the program code to the computer,
For example, a storage medium storing such a program code constitutes the present invention. As a storage medium for storing such a program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM,
A magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the supplied program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) or other operating system running on the computer. Needless to say, even when the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized in cooperation with application software or the like, such program codes are included in the embodiments of the present invention.

Further, after the supplied program code is stored in a memory provided in a function expansion board of the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion board or the function expansion unit is operated based on the instruction of the program code. It is needless to say that the present invention also includes a case where the CPU or the like provided in the first embodiment performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention, the lighting of the video light can be automatically controlled from the video camera side, so that the operation load on the photographer can be reduced. It is possible to provide a simpler imaging method. Further, according to another feature of the present invention, the light emission amount of the illumination light is controlled based on the exposure information, so that the exposure at the time of shooting can be made appropriate, and the photographer does not need to use nerves for exposure. It is possible to take a picture.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention and showing a schematic configuration of a video camera system.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a control procedure according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a control procedure according to a second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Video light body 102 Lamp 103 Battery 104 Lamp current / voltage control circuit 111 Accessory shoe control terminal 112 Accessory shoe monitoring terminal 121 Video camera body (camera unit part) 122 Microcomputer for video camera control 123 Lens unit 124 Lens 125 Iris 126 CCD 127 Camera signal processing unit

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A video light connected to a video camera,
In a video camera system for capturing an image with the video camera while irradiating a subject with the video light, a light control unit that outputs light control information for controlling lighting of an illumination light provided in the video light is provided by the video camera. A lighting control circuit provided on the video light side for performing lighting control according to the light control information sent from the light control means, based on the light control information sent from the light control means. A video camera system, wherein the lighting control circuit controls a lighting state of the lighting light. 2. The lighting control circuit according to claim 1, wherein the lighting control circuit controls the light emission amount of the illumination light based on the exposure information sent from the light control means to make the exposure at the time of photographing appropriate. Item 4. The video camera system according to item 1. 3. A light control means for outputting light control information for controlling a lighting light provided in a video light, and lighting for performing lighting control according to the light control information sent from the light control means. A video camera system including a control circuit, wherein: an information transmission process of transmitting light control information from the light control unit to the lighting control circuit; and Controlling the lighting operation of the illumination light for controlling the lighting operation of the illumination light. 4. The light control information transmitted by the information transmission processing is exposure information, and the processing of controlling the lighting operation of the illumination light controls the light emission amount of the illumination light based on the exposure information. 4. The video photographing method according to claim 3, wherein the video photographing method is a process for adjusting an exposure at the time of photographing. 5. A storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to function as each means according to claim 1 or 2. 6. A storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to execute a procedure for executing the video camera shooting method according to claim 3 or 4.