IMAGE PICKUP APPARATUS, METHOD FOR IMAGE PICKUP AND COMPUTER-READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM

• US 20130258149A1
• Filed: 03/29/2013
• Published: 10/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: CHOI, Dong-bum, LEE, Yong-ju
• Granted Patent: US 9,191,566 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/294
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 27/14623 Optical shielding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/672 based on the phase difference signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/44 by partially reading an SSIS array
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/704 Pixels specially adapted for focusing, e.g. phase difference pixel sets

Abstract

An image pickup apparatus, an image pickup method and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium are provided. The image pickup apparatus includes an image sensor including a first pixel group and a second pixel group, a controller which controls the image sensor to capture an image of an object by using the first pixel group and to capture a live view of the object by using the second pixel group, a storage which stores the image captured by the first pixel group, and an auto focusing (AF) processor which generates AF information by using the live view captured by the second pixel group.

Claims

1. An image pickup apparatus, comprising:

an image sensor comprising a first pixel group and a second pixel group;

a controller which controls the image sensor to capture an image of an object by using the first pixel group and to capture a live view of the object by using the second pixel group;

a storage which stores the image captured by the first pixel group; and

an auto focusing (AF) processor which generates AF information by using the live view captured by the second pixel group.

2. The image pickup apparatus of claim 1, wherein the AF processor generates the AF information by performing contrast AF of the live view captured by the second pixel group.

3. The image pickup apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second pixel group comprises a plurality of pixels and a shielding component to generate a phase difference of incident light received at each of the pixels, and the AF processor generates the AF information by performing phase differential AF of the live view captured by the second pixel group based on the phase difference.

4. The image pickup apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a user interface which receives a consecutive image capture command and transmits the consecutive image capture command to the controller,

wherein the controller receiving the consecutive image capture command controls the image sensor to perform consecutive image captures by using the first pixel group at a predetermined time interval, and to continuously capture the live view by using the second pixel group during the consecutive image captures.

5. The image pickup apparatus of claim 4, wherein the controller controls the image sensor to adjust a focus of the image sensor based on a live view captured at a time of beginning each image capture by using the AF information generated by the AF processor.

6. The image pickup apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first pixel group comprises a plurality of first pixels arranged in a matrix form having a plurality of lines and a plurality of columns, and the second pixel group comprises a plurality of second pixels arranged to be matched with the first pixels, respectively.

7. The image pickup apparatus of claim 6, wherein some of the plurality of second pixels comprise a shielding component to partly shield incident light.

8. The image pickup apparatus of claim 6, wherein a size of each of the first pixels is greater than a size of each of the second pixels, and a number of the first pixels is greater than a number of the second pixels.

9. The image pickup apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a display which continuously displays the live view.

10. The image pickup apparatus of claim 1, wherein the image of the object comprises a moving image, and

the storage stores the moving image captured by the first pixel group.

11. An image pickup method which is performed by an image pickup apparatus including an image sensor, the image pickup method comprising:

capturing image data of an object by using a first pixel group of the image sensor, and capturing a live view of the object by using a second pixel group of the image sensor;

storing the image data captured by the first pixel group; and

displaying the live view captured by the second pixel group.

12. The image pickup method of claim 11, further comprising generating auto-focusing (AF) information by performing contrast AF on the live view.

13. The image pickup method of claim 11, further comprising generating auto-focusing (AF) information by performing phase differential AF on the live view.

14. The image pickup method of claim 12, wherein, during consecutive image captures, the image pickup method further comprises:

generating the AF information by performing the contrast AF of a live view captured at a time of beginning each image capture; and

adjusting a focus by using the AF information generated at the time of beginning each image capture.

15. The image pickup method of claim 13, wherein, during consecutive image captures, the image pickup method further comprises:

generating the AF information by performing the phase differential AF of a live view captured at a time of beginning each image capture; and

adjusting a focus by using the AF information generated at the time of beginning each image capture.

16. The image pickup method of claim 11, wherein the first pixel group comprises a plurality of first pixels arranged in matrix form having a plurality of lines and a plurality of columns, and the second pixel group comprises a plurality of second pixels arranged to be matched with the first pixels, respectively.

17. The image pickup method of claim 15, wherein a size of each of the first pixels is greater than a size of each of the second pixels, and a number of the first pixels is greater than a number of the second pixels.

18. The image pickup method of claim 11, wherein the image data of the object comprises a moving image data, and

the storing stores the moving image data captured by the first pixel group of the image sensor.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium comprising a program stored thereon which causes a computer to implement an image pickup method, the image pickup method comprising:

capturing image data of an object by using a first pixel group of an image sensor, and capturing a live view of the object by using a second pixel group of the image sensor;

storing the image data captured by the first pixel group; and

displaying the live view captured by the second pixel group.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable recording medium of claim 19, wherein the image data of the object comprises a moving image data, and

the storing stores the moving image data captured by the first pixel group.

21. An image pickup apparatus, comprising:

an image sensor comprising a first pixel group having a first pixel value and capturing a first image, and a second pixel group having a second pixel value which is lower than the first pixel value and capturing a live view image; and

a controller which generates focus information for the first image based on the live view image,

wherein the first and second pixel values indicate pixel resolution values.

22. The image pickup apparatus of claim 21, further comprising a memory, wherein, when a command to capture an image is input, the controller stores the captured first image in the memory.

23. The image pickup apparatus of claim 21, wherein the controller controls the image sensor to continuously capture a live view image.

24. The image pickup apparatus of claim 21, wherein the controller uses a contrast auto-focusing method to generate the focus information from the live view image.

25. The image pickup apparatus of claim 21, wherein the controller uses a phase differential auto-focusing method to generate the focus information from the live view image.

26. The image pickup apparatus of claim 21, wherein the image date of the object comprises a moving image data, and

the storage stores the moving image captured by the first pixel group.