Image pickup apparatus and method for operating image pickup apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9444994-B2
Application number	US-201615013085-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 2, 2016
Priority date	Oct 4, 2013
Publication date	Sep 13, 2016
Grant date	Sep 13, 2016

Abstract

An image pickup apparatus is provided with: an objective optical system; an image pickup device; a contrast AF section adjusting a focus so that a peak value of a contrast evaluation value of an image is taken; an amount-of-motion detecting section detecting, from a plurality of time-series images, amounts of motion of the subject; and a control section controlling the contrast AF section so as to calculate another contrast evaluation value in a region where a region to be excluded where an amount of motion is equal to or larger than a threshold is excluded from a calculation target region, and the contrast AF section corrects the other contrast evaluation value based on an area of the calculation target region and an area of the region where the region to be excluded is excluded from the calculation target region.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An image pickup apparatus comprising:
an objective optical system including a focus lens for causing a focus position to change, the objective optical system forming an optical image of a subject;
an image pickup device picking up the optical image and outputting an image;
a contrast AF section causing the image pickup device to acquire a plurality of images while causing the focus position to change, calculating a contrast evaluation value of each of the acquired images, and adjusting the focus position so that a peak value of the contrast evaluation value is taken;
an amount-of-motion detecting section detecting, from the plurality of images acquired in a time series by the image pickup device, an amount of motion of the subject in each region in the images; and
a control section detecting a region to be excluded where the amount of motion is equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold, and controlling the contrast AF section so as to calculate another contrast evaluation value in a region where the region to be excluded is excluded from a calculation target region of the contrast evaluation value,
wherein the contrast AF section corrects the other contrast evaluation value, based on an area of the calculation target region and an area of the region where the region to be excluded is excluded from the calculation target region.

2. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the control section calculates a correction coefficient, which is a result of dividing an area of all the calculation target region by an area of the calculation target region after excluding the region to be excluded; and
the contrast AF section calculates the contrast evaluation value independent of the size of a calculation target region by calculating a contrast addition value for the calculation target region after excluding the region to be excluded and multiplying the contrast addition value by the correction coefficient.

3. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the images used by the amount-of-motion detecting section for detection are the images acquired for calculating the contrast evaluation value.

4. A method for operating an image pickup apparatus, the method comprising steps of:
an objective optical system comprising a focus lens for causing a focus position to change forming an optical image of a subject;
an image pickup device picking up the optical image and outputting an image;
a contrast AF section causing the image pickup device to acquire a plurality of images while causing the focus position to change, calculating a contrast evaluation value of each of the acquired images, and adjusting the focus position so that a peak value of the contrast evaluation value is taken;
an amount-of-motion detecting section detecting, from the plurality of images acquired in a time series by the image pickup device, an amount of motion of the subject in each region in the images;
a control section detecting a region to be excluded where the amount of motion is equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold, and controlling the contrast AF section so as to calculate another contrast evaluation value in a region where the region to be excluded is excluded from a calculation target region of the contrast evaluation value; and
the contrast AF section correcting the other contrast evaluation value, based on an area of the calculation target region and an area of the region where the region to be excluded is excluded from the calculation target region.

Assignees

• Olympus Corp

Inventors

• Ogasawara Kotaro
• Fujisawa Yutaka
• Fujimoto Takehide
• Kanno Kiyotaka

Classifications

• H04N23/69

  Control of means for changing angle of the field of view, e.g. optical zoom objectives or electronic zooming · CPC title

• H04N23/555

  for picking-up images in sites, inaccessible due to their dimensions or hazardous conditions, e.g. endoscopes or borescopes · CPC title

• H04N23/673 Primary

  based on contrast or high frequency components of image signals, e.g. hill climbing method · CPC title

• G03B37/005

  Photographing internal surfaces, e.g. of pipe, (G03B37/02 - G03B37/06 take precedence; instruments for performing medical examinations of cavities or tubes of the body by photographic inspection A61B1/00) · CPC title

• H04N5/23296

  Electricity · mapped topic