Patent ID: 7978253
Filing Date: 2011-07-12
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image pickup device, comprising: an image pickup element to photograph a subject; an imaging lens to form a subject image on the image pickup element; a moving section to move a lens so as to perform focus adjustment; and a section which determines a focusing degree of each predetermined area within an image, wherein the image pickup device is provided with a lens position determining section, which obtains each focusing degree of respective lens moving positions to determine a lens position with a maximum focusing degree; a distance determining section which determines a distance from the lens position to a subject corresponding to each predetermined area within the image; an image area determining section which determines a specific image area of an in-focus subject; a blur processing section which performs blur processing to a background which is an image beyond the specific image area of the subject based on the distance; and a display section displaying images obtained successively, wherein the distance determining section obtains distance information for the respective predetermined areas based on variances in the obtained images, and the blur processing section determines a blur parameter fs corresponding to the obtained distance information for each predetermined area according to the following equation and performs the blur processing: where “a′” is a distance from the lens position up to the background whereto the blur processing is performed, “a” is a distance from the lens position up to the in-focus subject, “f” is a focus length of the imaging lens, and “K” is a coefficient.