IMAGING DEVICE AND EXPOSURE CONTROL METHOD FOR IMAGING DEVICE

• US 20080165264A1
• Filed: 04/16/2007
• Published: 07/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Saito, Shinichiro, Sato, Masaaki, Cho, Hirotake
• Granted Patent: US 7,847,857 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/296
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/73 by influencing the exposure time

Abstract

An imaging device includes a sensor that is color coded by using high-sensitivity pixels having higher sensitivity to incident light than chromatic color pixels and an automatic exposure function that allows the imaging device to control exposure according to illuminance in an imaging environment. An algorithm in the automatic exposure function that determines a reference color in a level diagram according to the illuminance uses the high-sensitivity pixels as the reference color in a low illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a maximum, while using green pixels, which are the chromatic color pixels, as the reference color in a standard illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a minimum.

Claims

1. An imaging device comprising:

a sensor that is color coded by using high-sensitivity pixels having higher sensitivity to incident light than chromatic color pixels; and

an automatic exposure function that allows the imaging device to control exposure according to illuminance in an imaging environment,

wherein an algorithm in the automatic exposure function that determines a reference color in a level diagram according to the illuminance uses the high-sensitivity pixels as the reference color in a low illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a maximum,

while using green pixels, which are the chromatic color pixels, as the reference color in a standard illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a minimum.

3. The imaging device according to claim 1, wherein an electronic shutter is controlled such that only the high-sensitivity pixels undergo exposure control in the standard illuminance region.

4. The imaging device according to claim 1, wherein white balance is carried out in such a way that adjustment is carried out to match with the level of the high-sensitivity pixels in the low illuminance region.

5. The imaging device according to claim 1, wherein the high-sensitivity pixels are set to be the reference color in the process where the standard illuminance region is switched to the low illuminance region.

2. An imaging device comprising:

a sensor that is color coded by using high-sensitivity pixels having higher sensitivity to incident light than chromatic color pixels; and

an automatic exposure function that allows the imaging device to control exposure according to illuminance in an imaging environment,

wherein an algorithm in the automatic exposure function that determines a reference color in a level diagram according to the illuminance uses green pixels, which are the chromatic color pixels, as the reference color in a standard illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a minimum.

6. An exposure controlling method for an imaging device, the imaging device including:

a sensor that is color coded by using high-sensitivity pixels having higher sensitivity to incident light than chromatic color pixels; and

an automatic exposure function that allows the imaging device to control exposure according to illuminance in an imaging environment,

wherein an algorithm in the automatic exposure function that determines a reference color in a level diagram according to the illuminance uses the high-sensitivity pixels as the reference color in a low illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a maximum,

while using green pixels, which are the chromatic color pixels, as the reference color in a standard illuminance region where the gain of the sensor is set to a minimum.