Photographing apparatus and focus detection method using the same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10264174-B2
Application number	US-201615213673-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 19, 2016
Priority date	Dec 8, 2015
Publication date	Apr 16, 2019
Grant date	Apr 16, 2019

Abstract

A photographing apparatus for automatically detecting a focus via a phase difference detection scheme, the photographing apparatus including an image sensor comprising a plurality of phase difference pixels and configured to acquire an image of a subject; an addition processor configured to add output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels; a controller configured to detect the focus of the image based on output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels, and to set an addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels added by the addition processor based on information of the detected focus and information of the acquired image of the subject.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A photographing apparatus configured to automatically detect a focus via a phase difference detection scheme, the photographing apparatus comprising:
an image sensor comprising a plurality of phase difference pixels arranged in rows and columns and configured to acquire an image of a subject;
a controller configured to:
detect focus of the image based on output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels,
set an addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels in both a row direction and a column direction, based on information regarding the detected focus and information regarding the image, the addition range being settable to include two or more phase difference pixels in the row direction and/or in the column direction,
change an attribute of a region of interest (ROI) with respect to the image based on the information regarding the detected focus and the information regarding the image; and
exclude saturated pixels from the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels when a number of pixels saturated in the ROI is greater than a predetermined number of pixels; and

an addition processor configured to add the output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels based on the addition range.

2. The photographing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to acquire information regarding a first focus based on a phase detection auto focus (PAF) reliability value, and to set the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels based on the information regarding the first focus and to control a focus detector to detect a second focus based on the added output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels.

3. The photographing apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the controller is configured to change the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels when the PAF reliability value is outside a predetermined PAF reliability range.

4. The photographing apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the PAF reliability value comprises at least one of a phase detection auto focus value, a phase difference auto focus value, a phase detection auto focus signal level value, a sum of absolute differences (SAD) value, a sum of squared differences (SSD) value, a repeat pattern value, an AF reliability value, and a defocus amount value.

5. The photographing apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the controller is configured to determine a disparity from a resultant value of correlation calculation, and the controller is configured to set the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels based on the disparity when the disparity is not equal to 0.

6. The photographing apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the controller is configured to determine a curvature associated with a correlation calculation based on the SAD value, and when the curvature is less than a first curvature, the controller is configured to increase the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels, and when the curvature is greater than a second curvature, the controller is configured to reduce the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels,
wherein the first curvature is a start value of a predetermined range and the second curvature is an end value of the predetermined range.

7. The photographing apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the controller is configured to determine a smallest value of a correlation calculation based on the SAD value, and when the smallest value is less than a first value, the controller is configured to reduce the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels, and when the smallest value is greater than a second value, the controller is configured to reduce the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels,
wherein the first smallest value is a start value of a predetermined range and the second smallest value is an end value of the predetermined range.

8. The photographing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to determine an information analysis value with respect to the image, and when the information analysis value with respect to the image is outside a previously determined analysis value range, the controller is configured to change the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels.

9. The photographing apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the information analysis value with respect to the image comprises at least one of a face detection value of the subject, an operation detection value of the subject, a ratio that the subject occupies in a screen, an optical character recognition (OCR) analysis value of the subject, and an edge detection value of the subject.

10. The photographing apparatus of claim 9 , wherein, when the operation detection value of the subject is less than a first operation detection value, the controller is configured to increase the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels, and when the operation detection value of the subject is greater than a second operation detection value, the controller is configured to reduce the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels.

11. The photographing apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the information analysis value with respect to the image comprises at least one of illuminance of the image, an exposure time of the image, contrast of the image, and an amount of defocus of the image.

12. The photographing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to provide weights based on colors of the phase difference pixels.

13. The photographing apparatus of claim 2 , further comprising:
a display configured to output the image.

14. The photographing apparatus of claim 13 , wherein an addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels included in the image output by the image sensor and the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels used by the controller to detect the second focus are different from each other.

15. A method of automatically detecting a focus via a phase difference detection scheme, the method comprising:
acquiring an image of a subject from an image sensor comprising a plurality of phase difference pixels arranged in rows and columns;
detecting focus of the image based on output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels;
setting an addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels in both a row direction and a column direction based on information regarding the detected focus and information regarding the image, the addition range being settable to include two or more phase difference pixels in the row direction and/or in the column direction;
changing an attribute of a region of interest (ROI) with respect to the image based on the information regarding the detected focus and the information regarding the image;
excluding saturated pixels from the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels when a number of pixels saturated in the ROI is greater than a predetermined number of pixels; and
adding output signals of the plurality of phase difference pixels based on the addition range.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the setting of the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels comprises:
acquiring information regarding a first focus based on a phase detection auto focus (PAF) reliability value and setting the addition range of the plurality of phase difference pixels based on the information regarding the first focus.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
detecting a second focus based on the added output signals of t

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kim Il-Do
• Lee Jeong-Won
• Choi Woo-Seok

Classifications

• H04N25/134

  based on three different wavelength filter elements · CPC title

• H04N23/63

  by using electronic viewfinders · CPC title

• H04N23/672 Primary

  based on the phase difference signals · CPC title

• H04N23/61

  based on recognised objects · CPC title

• H04N25/447

  by preserving the colour pattern with or without loss of information · CPC title