Patent ID: 8970779
Filing Date: 2015-03-03
Classification: G03B,H04N

Abstract:
1. A camera body configuring a camera system including the camera body and an interchangeable lens attachably and detachably mounted on the camera body, the interchangeable lens having lens firmware storage means which has stored therein data of lens firmware of a predetermined version for operating the interchangeable lens, with the predetermined version being taken as a present version, the lens firmware capable of switching to specifications of either one of the present version and one or plurality of old versions older than the present version, the camera body comprising: body firmware storage means which has stored therein data of body firmware of a predetermined version for operating the camera body, the body firmware capable of switching to specifications of either one of the present version and one or plurality of old versions older than the present version; compatibility information storage means which has stored therein compatibility information indicating presence or absence of compatibility between each of the present version and the old versions that are switchable of the body firmware stored in the body firmware storage means and each of the present version and the old version that are switchable of the lens firmware stored in the lens firmware storage means; compatible version selecting means which selects, based on the compatibility information stored in the compatibility information storage means, a version of the body firmware and a version of the lens firmware with mutual compatibility between the present version and the old versions that are switchable of the body firmware stored in the body firmware storage means and the present version and the old versions that are switchable of the lens firmware stored in the lens firmware storage means, the compatible version selecting means selecting, when a plurality of sets of the version of the body firmware and the version of the lens firmware with mutual compatibility are present, versions of a set in which at least one of the version of the body firmware and the version of the lens firmware is a latest version, from out of the sets of these versions; and version switching means which switches the body firmware for operating the camera body to specifications of the version of the body firmware selected by the compatible version selecting means and switches the lens firmware for operating the interchangeable lens to specifications of the version of the lens firmware selected by the compatible version selecting means when the present version of the body firmware and the present version of the lens firmware do not have compatibility.