Patent ID: 7734165
Filing Date: 2010-06-08
Classification: G02B,G03B,H04N

Abstract:
1. An imaging apparatus which performs focus adjustment operation by means of adjusting the position of a group of focus adjustment system lenses included in an imaging optical system, the apparatus comprising: an imaging unit for subjecting an image of a subject condensed by the imaging optical system to photoelectric conversion, to thus acquire a captured image; a first distance measurement unit for acquiring as a first measured distance a distance from the imaging optical system to the subject, in accordance with a result of detection of contrast of a predetermined distance measurement target area in the captured image; a face detection unit for detecting from the captured image coordinate positions, on the captured image, of at least the eyes of a person appearing in the captured image; an eye-to-eye distance computing unit for computing a distance between the eyes in a captured image of at least one person appearing in the captured image, in accordance with the detected coordinate positions of the eyes; a second distance measurement unit for computing a distance from an image-capturing optical system to a subject from the computed distance between the eyes and acquiring the distance as a second measured distance; a reliability estimation unit for estimating a degree of reliability of the first measured distance with a degree of reliability of the second measured distance; and a focus adjustment unit for performing focus adjustment operation in accordance with a measured distance determined to be highly reliable by the reliability estimation unit.