Image-capturing apparatus including shutter unit with pre-driving operation

1. An image-capturing apparatus comprising:

an image-capturing device having an image-capturing surface;

a shutter unit having an aperture therein, the aperture being configured to allow light from an object to pass through the aperture; and

a controller that controls the shutter unit,

wherein the shutter unit includes:

a curtain unit that selectively executes an opening operation of opening the aperture and a closing operation of closing the aperture; and

an actuator that drives the curtain unit, and

wherein the controller is operable to control the shutter unit to execute:

an image-capturing operation in which the shutter unit executes the closing operation after resetting an electric charge stored in the image-capturing device; and

a pre-driving operation in which the actuator drives the curtain unit with a small motion, in which the curtain unit moves from a first position to a second position and back to the first position, before executing the image-capturing operation.

2. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein the image-capturing apparatus has a consecutive image-capturing mode in which the controller executes a plurality of consecutive image-capturing operations including the image-capturing operation, and

wherein, in the consecutive image-capturing mode, the controller is operable to control the shutter unit:

to execute the pre-driving operation before executing a first image-capturing operation out of the plurality of consecutive image-capturing operations; and

not to execute the pre-driving operation while executing the plurality of consecutive image-capturing operations.

3. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the controller is operable to:

display a live-view image containing images in real time based on image data obtained from the image-capturing device; and

control the shutter unit to carry out the pre-driving operation such that a user is not able to recognize visually from the live-view image that the aperture is driven to make small motion in the pre-driving operation.

4. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein the controller is operable to control the shutter unit to execute the pre-driving operation between a time for obtaining a certain frame of the image data and a time for obtaining a further frame of the image data.

5. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein the curtain unit includes a blade configured to open and close the aperture, and

wherein the actuator drives the blade such that the blade does not block the light passing through the aperture completely when the shutter unit executes the pre-driving operation.

6. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein the actuator drives the blade such that the blade does not cover any part of the aperture when the shutter unit executes the pre-driving operation.

7. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein, in the pre-driving operation, the actuator drives the entire curtain unit with a simultaneous small motion before executing the image-capturing operation.

8. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein the curtain unit includes a first and second blade.

9. The image-capturing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the controller is further operable to control the shutter unit to execute a pause operation between the pre-driving operation and the image-capturing operation in which the actuator does not drive the curtain unit.