IMAGE CAPTURING APPARATUS CAPABLE OF DISPLAYING LIVE PREVIEW IMAGE

• US 20090290046A1
• Filed: 05/21/2009
• Published: 11/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Inventors: KITA, Kazunori
• Granted Patent: US 8,294,805 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/231.99
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/635 Region indicators; Field of view indicators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/64 Computer-aided capture of images, e.g. transfer from script file into camera, check of taken image quality, advice or proposal for image composition or decision on when to take image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/667 Camera operation mode switching, e.g. between still and video, sport and normal or high- and low-resolution modes

Abstract

An image capturing apparatus includes: an imaging unit configured to capture an image of a subject and outputs image data containing the image; a display unit configured to display a live preview image of the subject based on the image data output from the imaging unit; a processor configured to set an image size of the image to be recorded and perform image processing on the live preview image to control a display range of the live preview image to be displayed on the display unit based on the image size to be recorded.

Claims

1. An image capturing apparatus comprising:

an imaging unit configured to capture an image of a subject;

a memory unit;

a display unit; and

a processor configured to perform image processing on the image captured by the imaging unit to generate a first image having a first image size and a second image having a second image size, the processor being configured to control the memory unit to store the first image while controlling the display unit to display the second image as a live preview image of the image captured by the imaging unit.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processor sets the second image size to be larger than the first image size.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the processor sets the second image size to be within a range from a minimum size to a maximum size, the minimum size being the first image size, and the maximum size being a size of the image captured by the imaging unit.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the processor sets the first image size to be configurable.

5. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the processor sets the second image size to be configurable.

6. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the processor sets a visual field widening ratio defining a ratio of the second image size to the first image size, and

wherein the processor performs the image processing based on the visual field widening ratio.

7. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the processor performs the image processing to add a frame image on the live preview image, the frame image showing the first image size.

8. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the processor performs the image processing to display the live preview image to have a first region corresponding to the first image size and displayed in a first display mode and a second region surrounding the first region and displayed in a second display mode different from the first display mode.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the processor performs the image processing to display the first region in a color mode and to display the second region in a monochrome mode.

10. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the processor performs the image processing to display the live preview image with an indication for notifying a user the visual field widening ratio.

11. The apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

a user interface configured to receive commands including a record command input by a user; and

a recording unit configured to record the first image on a recording medium in response to the record command.

12. The apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising an optical system configured to form the image of the subject on the imaging unit,

wherein the optical system includes a wide-angle lens.

13. The apparatus according to claim 6 further comprising an optical system configured to form the image of the subject on the imaging unit, the optical system including a zoom lens;

and

an actuator unit configured to actuates the optical system in accordance with the visual field widening ratio set by the processor.

14. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processor performs the image processing to apply a digital zoom on the live preview image by performing a pixel addition processing on the image captured by the imaging unit.

15. A method for controlling an image capturing apparatus,

wherein the apparatus comprises:

an imaging unit configured to capture an image of a subject;

a memory unit; and

a display unit, and

wherein the method comprises;

performing image processing on the image captured by the imaging unit to generate a first image having a first image size and a second image having a second image size; and

controlling the memory unit to store the first image while controlling the display unit to display the second image as a live preview image of the image captured by the imaging unit.

16. A computer readable medium containing a sequence of instructions for a program executable by a computer system provided in an image capturing apparatus,

wherein the apparatus comprises:

an imaging unit configured to capture an image of a subject;

a memory unit; and

a display unit, and

wherein the program causes the computer system to perform a process comprising;

performing image processing on the image captured by the imaging unit to generate a first image having a first image size and a second image having a second image size; and

controlling the memory unit to store the first image while controlling the display unit to display the second image as a live preview image of the image captured by the imaging unit.