Digital camera for capturing a panoramic image
A digital camera comprises an angular velocity detector for detecting angular velocity of a camera body in a yaw direction and a pitch direction. In capturing panoramic image, when movement of the camera body is detected, a system controller determines an image capturing interval based on the detected angular velocity in the yaw direction, and controls a CCD image sensor to perform plural times of image capturing at the determined image capturing interval. The system controller temporarily stores the captured image data for the plural images in a buffer memory, and controls an image signal processor based on the angular velocity in the pitch direction and the image-capturing interval so as to compose the image data for the plural images to form a single panoramic image.
1. A digital camera for forming image data by capturing a subject image focused on an image sensor through a talking lens, comprising:
an angular velocity detector for detecting an angular velocity of a camera body in a yaw direction and a pitch direction when said camera body is being moved;
a controller for determining a continuous capturing interval based on said angular velocity in said yaw direction detected by said angular velocity detector and driving an image sensor to perform image capturing plural times according to said determined continuous capturing interval;
a temporary memory for temporarily storing image data for plural images obtained by said plural times of image capturing;
an image composition section for applying an image processing to said image data stored in said temporary memory based on said angular velocity in said pitch direction detected by said angular velocity detector so as to compose said image data for said plural images to form panoramic image data for a single panoramic image; and
a lens driver for moving taking lens in an optical axis direction, wherein said controller controls said lens driver to move said taking lens to a position where distortion of image is minimized, and determines said continuous capturing interval based on a field angle of said taking lens at said minimized distortion position and said angular velocity of said camera body in said yaw direction.
2. A digital camera as described in claim 1 , wherein said controller controls a shutter speed based on said angular velocity in said yaw direction and in said pitch direction so as to avoid blurring said captured image.
3. A digital camera as described in claim 2 , wherein said controller determines said continuous capturing interval such that adjacent image capturing fields in said plural times of image capturing partly overlap each other.
4. A digital camera as described in claim 3 , wherein said controller controls said image composition section based on said angular velocity in said pitch direction and said continuous capturing interval to add up image data in said overlapping portion on a pixel basis so as to form said panoramic image data.
5. A digital camera as described in claim 1 , further comprising a display for displaying a playback of a panoramic image based on said panoramic image data.
6. A digital camera as described in claim 1 , further comprising an external memory attached in said camera body in a removable manner, in which said panoramic image data is recorded.
7. A digital camera as described in claim 1 , further comprising a selector for selecting one of a panoramic image capture mode in which said panoramic image data is formed and an ordinary image capture mode in which said image data are not composed.