JPH06276477A - Electronic still camera device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the electronic still camera device in which an image pickup speed at consecutive shot is increased more than an image pickup speed at single shot through simple configuration. CONSTITUTION:The electronic still camera device recording digital picture data corresponding to an optical image of a picked-up object to a recording medium 18 by each prescribed data quantity via a 1st memory 19 built in a camera main body 11 is provided with a 2nd memory 20 removable from the camera main body 11 and having a larger storage capacity than that of the 1st memory 19 and changeover means 21,22 switching a path for digital picture data to the recording medium 18 via the 2nd memory 20 in place of the 1st memory 19 while the 2nd memory 20 is mounted to the camera main body 11.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an improvement of an electronic still camera device for converting an optical image of a photographed subject into digital image data and recording the digital image data on a recording medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As is well known, in recent years, there has been an electronic photographic system which converts an optical image of a photographed subject into digital image data and causes a television receiver to display an image based on the digital image data. It has been developed and is becoming popular in the market. An example of such an electronic photography system is an electronic still camera device. This electronic still camera device includes a semiconductor memory, a magnetic tape,
A recording medium such as a disc is attached to the camera body, and digital image data obtained by shooting is recorded.After recording, take out the recording medium from the camera body, attach it to the playback device, and connect it to the playback device. A still image is displayed by the television receiver that has been set up.

FIG. 5 shows such a conventional electronic still camera device. That is, in the camera body 11, the optical image of the subject incident through the imaging lens 12 is subjected to photoelectric conversion, color separation, process processing, etc. by the imaging circuit 13, and then supplied to the A / D conversion circuit 14. Converted into digital image data. The digital image data is once stored in the frame memory 15 and then read out, and the compression amount is subjected to a high-efficiency encoding process by the compression circuit 16 to compress the data amount. Then, the compressed digital image data is recorded on the memory card 18 as a recording medium via the card I / F (interface) circuit 17.

Here, the card I / F circuit 17 has a buffer memory 19 inside, and the compression circuit 1
The writing speed when writing the digital image data output from the buffer memory 6 in the buffer memory 19 and the reading speed for sending the digital image data written in the buffer memory 19 to the memory card 18 are adjusted. In this case, since the capacity of the buffer memory 19 is not so large, the operation of writing the digital image data output from the compression circuit 16 until the predetermined storage capacity of the buffer memory 19 is reached, and then reading it and sending it to the memory card 19 is performed. By repeating, the digital image data for one still image is stored in the memory card 18.
I am trying to record it.

FIG. 6 shows a series of operation timings until the digital image data output from the A / D conversion circuit 14 is recorded in the memory card 18, as shown in FIG.
Shows the timing of writing the digital image data of one still image output from the A / D conversion circuit 14 into the frame memory 15. FIG. 6B shows the compressed digital image output from the compression circuit 16. The timing of writing the image data to the buffer memory 19 is shown in FIG.
The write timing of the digital image data read from the buffer memory 19 to the memory card 18 is shown.

That is, in FIG. 6, the digital image data for one still image output from the compression circuit 16 is divided into four times and the buffer memory 19 to the memory card 18 are divided.
In the example shown in FIG. 2, the shutter is operated at time T1 to the time T3 at which the fourth writing of data to the memory card 18 is completed until the entire shooting required by the electronic still camera device during single shooting. It's time. After the shutter is operated at time T1, the shutter can be operated next only when the still image 1 output from the compression circuit 16 is output.
After all the digital image data for one sheet is transferred to the buffer memory 19, that is, at the time T2 when the fourth data writing to the buffer memory 19 is completed, this time from T1 to T2 is required for continuous shooting. Time (minimum shooting interval).

However, in the conventional electronic still camera device as described above, the total shooting time (time T1 to T3) required for single shooting and the shooting time required for continuous shooting (time T1 to T3).
The difference from 2) is the fourth time, that is, the buffer memory 19
Digital image data read from the memory card 1
It is only the time (time T2 to T3) to write the data into the memory 8, and in fact, the digital image data for one still image is divided into several tens of times and the buffer memory 19 to the memory card 18 is divided.
Considering that the shooting speed is transferred to, the shooting speed in single shooting and the shooting speed in continuous shooting become substantially the same, and there is a problem that the continuous shooting speed cannot be improved.

Particularly, in recent years, an EEPROM has been replaced with a DRAM (dynamic random access memory).
(Electrically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memory) Memory Card 1
It is considered to be used as an 8 semiconductor memory. In this case, since the writing speed of data in the EEPROM is slower than that of the DRAM, the shooting speed in the single shooting becomes slower, and as a result, the shooting speed in the continuous shooting becomes slower. Has become.

[0009]

As described above, in the conventional electronic still camera device, since the shooting speed during single shooting and the shooting speed during continuous shooting are substantially the same, the continuous shooting speed can be improved. It has the problem of not being.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and is an extremely good electronic still camera capable of increasing the shooting speed in continuous shooting as compared with the shooting speed in single shooting with a simple structure. The purpose is to provide a device.

[0011]

According to an electronic still camera device of the present invention, a predetermined amount of digital image data corresponding to an optical image of a photographed subject is passed through a first memory incorporated in a camera body. It is intended for recording on a recording medium one by one. Then, a second memory that is removable from the camera body and has a recording capacity larger than that of the first memory, and with the second memory attached to the camera body, replaces the digital image data with the first memory. And a switching means for switching the recording medium to the recording medium via the second memory.

[0012]

According to the above construction, the second memory having a recording capacity larger than that of the first memory is attached to the camera body, and the digital image data is transferred to the second memory instead of the first memory. Since a larger amount of data can be transferred to the recording medium all at once as compared with the case where the first memory is used, the next shutter operation can be already performed at the time of this data transfer. Because,
With a simple configuration, the shooting speed during continuous shooting can be increased compared to the shooting speed during single shooting.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. In FIGS. 1 and 2, the same parts as those in FIG. First, in FIG. 1, a memory pack 20 is attached to the camera body 11. The memory pack 20 is equipped with a semiconductor memory (not shown) having a capacity capable of recording at least one compressed still image of digital image data.

Here, as shown in FIG. 2, a card I / F
On the input / output side of the buffer memory 19 in the circuit 17, the digital image data output from the compression circuit 16 is transferred to the memory card 18 via the buffer memory 19 in a state where the memory pack 20 is not attached to the camera body 11. The memory pack 20 is switched so as to lead the camera body 11
The changeover switch 21, which can be switched so as to guide the digital image data output from the compression circuit 16 to the memory card 18 via the memory pack 20 in the state where the switch 21 is attached to the memory card 18.
22 is provided.

In FIG. 3, the memory pack 20 has the camera body 1
1 shows a series of operation timings until the digital image data output from the A / D conversion circuit 14 is recorded in the memory card 18 in the state of being attached to the A / D converter 1. FIG. The writing timing of the digital image data for one still image output from the conversion circuit 14 to the frame memory 15 is shown, and FIG. 2B shows a memory pack of the compressed digital image data output from the compression circuit 16. 20 shows the write timing to the memory card 20, and FIG. 7C shows the write timing to the memory card 18 of the digital image data read from the memory pack 20.

That is, when the shutter is operated at time T1, the digital image data for one still image compressed by the compression circuit 16 via the frame memory 15 is not divided as in the conventional memory. After all the data is written in the pack 20, it is read and transferred to the memory card 18 and written. Therefore, from the time T1 when the shutter is operated to the time T3 when the writing of data to the memory card 18 is completed, the total shooting time required for single shooting of this electronic still camera device is set.

After the shutter is operated at time T1, the digital image data for one still image output from the compression circuit 16 is completely transferred to the memory pack 20, that is, the data to the memory pack 20 is transferred. At the time T2 when writing is completed, the next shutter operation becomes possible, so the time T1 to T2 is the shooting time (minimum shooting interval) required for continuous shooting.

Therefore, according to the configuration of the above embodiment, the difference between the shooting time required for single shooting (time T1 to T3) and the shooting time required for continuous shooting (time T1 to T2) is calculated from the memory pack 20. It becomes a time (time T2 to T3) to write the read digital image data of one still image after the compression processing to the memory card 18, and it is read from the buffer memory 19 for the fourth time shown in FIG. Since the time for writing the digital image data in the memory card 18 (time T2 to T3) can be made longer,
A memory pack 20 having a capacity capable of recording at least one compressed still image of digital image data is attached to the camera body 11, and digital image data of one still image output from the compression circuit 16 is stored in the memory. Pack 2
With a simple configuration in which data is once written to 0, read out, and led to the memory card 18, the shooting speed during continuous shooting can be increased compared to the shooting speed during single shooting.

Here, in the above embodiment, the memory pack 2
When 0 is attached to the camera body 11, the output data of the compression circuit 16 is transferred to the memory card 1 via the memory pack 20.
Although the changeover switches 21 and 22 are changed over so as to be guided to No. 8, the changeover is not limited to this. For example, when the memory pack 20 is attached to the camera body 11 and the camera body is set to the continuous shooting mode, the changeover is performed. The switches 21 and 22 may be switched to the memory pack 20 side. Further, in this case, as shown in FIG. 4, if the continuous shooting mode is set in the camera body 11, the switch 23 is turned on to apply the power supply voltage Vcc to the memory pack 20. The power consumption of the camera body 11 can be promoted.

In the above embodiment, the case where the digital image data is compressed and written in the memory card 18 has been described. However, the present invention does not perform the compression process or uses a tape or a disc as a recording medium. Of course, it can also be applied to. The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

[0021]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide an extremely good electronic still camera device with a simple structure that can increase the shooting speed during continuous shooting as compared with the shooting speed during single shooting.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of an electronic still camera device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a main part of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart shown to explain the operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a modification of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a block configuration diagram showing a conventional electronic still camera device.

FIG. 6 is a timing chart shown for explaining the operation of the conventional apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 ... Camera body, 12 ... Imaging lens, 13 ... Imaging circuit, 14 ... A / D conversion circuit, 15 ... Frame memory, 1
6 ... Compression circuit, 17 ... Card I / F circuit, 18 ... Memory card, 19 ... Buffer memory, 20 ... Memory pack,
21, 22 ... Changeover switch, 23 ... Switch.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An electronic still camera device for recording digital image data corresponding to an optical image of a photographed subject on a recording medium by a predetermined amount of data via a first memory incorporated in a camera body, A second memory, which is removable from the camera body and has a recording capacity larger than that of the first memory, and the digital image data is stored in the first memory in a state where the second memory is attached to the camera body. In place of the above, an electronic still camera device comprising: switching means for switching the recording medium to the recording medium via the second memory.