Patent ID: 6166764
Filing Date: 2000-12-26
Classification: B60R,H04N

Abstract:
A camera comprising:a housing having first and second entrance windows disposed on opposite sides of said housing, through each of which extraneous light is taken in;an image pickup device mounted in said housing;an optical element for reflecting said extraneous light once, which is incident from said first entrance window, and for forming an inverted mirror image on an area of an imaging plane of said image pickup device, which is on a same side of said housing as said first entrance window, and for reflecting said extraneous light once, which is incident from said second entrance window, and for forming an inverted mirror image on the area of said imaging plane of said image pickup device, which is on a same side of said housing as said second entrance window;wherein said optical element comprises: an image formation lens, placed in a stage prior to said image pickup device, for forming an image on the imaging plane of said image pickup device from the extraneous light; and a prism formed as a square pillar which has a section shaped like an isosceles triangle and is disposed in a stage prior to said image formation lens by making a bisector of a vertex angle of the isosceles triangle coincide with an optical axis of said image formation lens.