Electronic blurring compensation device

• US 20070195180A1
• Filed: 01/19/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: OM Digital Solutions Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation, Olympus Imaging Corporation (Olympus Corporation)
• Inventors: Yamasaki, Masafumi
• Granted Patent: US 7,961,233 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/248
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/68 for stable pick-up of the scene, e.g. compensating for camera body vibrations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/6845 by combination of a plurality of images sequentially taken

Abstract

The present invention provides an electronic blurring compensation device applied to a digital camera that includes an angular rate sensor for detecting blurring of an image, an solid-state image pickup element for shooting continuously over time a plurality of images, compensating mutual blurring of the plurality of shot images in accordance with the amount of blurring detected by the angular rate sensor, and generating one image by synthesizing the plurality of compensated images, and a CPU for controlling the number of continuous shootings by the solid-state image pickup element such that the total amount of blurring over the plurality of continuously shot images falls within a previously set predetermined value.

Claims

1. An electronic blurring compensation device, comprising:

a shooting section for continuously shooting a plural images;

a detection section for detecting blurring of the images;

a number-of-shooting control section for controlling the number of continuous shootings such that a total amount of blurring over of a predetermined number of continuously shot images among the plurality of the continuously shot images falls within a previously set predetermined value;

a blurring compensation section for compensating mutual blurring of the plurality of images shot by the predetermined times on the basis of the control of number-of-shooting control section; and

an image synthesize section for synthesizing the images compensated by the blurring compensation section.

2. The electronic blurring compensation device according to claim 1, wherein:

the shooting section is structured by including an image pickup element having a plurality of pixels arranged in matrix and a register for holding a first image generated by the pixels;

the blurring compensation section shifts relative positions of the first image held in the register and a second image generated by the pixels such that relative blurring between the second image and the first image is cancelled; and

the image synthesize section synthesizes the first image and the second image which are compensated by the blurring compensation section.

3. The electronic blurring compensation device according to claim 1, wherein the number-of-shooting control section controls the number of shootings such that a total amount of blurring of continuously shot images falls within a previously set predetermined value.

4. The electronic blurring compensation device according to claim 1, wherein the number-of-shooting control section controls the number of shootings such that a total exposure time of the plurality of the continuously shot images is equal to or lower than an exposure time obtained by multiplying an inverse number of a focal length of a shooting lens by a previously set predetermined coefficient.

5. The electronic blurring compensation device according to claim 2, further comprising an amplification section for amplifying the image synthesized by the image synthesize section when the number of the continuously shot images does not reach the previously set predetermined number.

6. The electronic blurring compensation device according to claim 1, wherein:

the shooting section is structured by including an image pickup element having a plurality of pixels arranged in matrix, a signal processing section for generating a plurality of images digitalized by receiving an output signal from the image pickup element, and a memory section for storing the image processed by the signal processing section; and

the blurring compensation section compensates blurring of the image stored in the memory section.