Patent ID: 7448753

Claim:
A hand-held digital camera for obtaining images of a portion of a patient's body, comprising: a hand-held housing designed to be placed close to the portion of a patient's body being imaged; a visible light source located within the housing for providing light along an illumination path from a housing aperture to the patient's body; an image sensor located within the housing that detects light returning from the patient's body along an imaging path that passes into the housing aperture; an optical system located within the housing with separate illumination and imaging paths; an external optical aperture common to the illumination and imaging systems, wherein illumination and imaging sub-apertures are wholly contained within the common external aperture, are longitudinally coincident, and are laterally separated and non-overlapping; a digital memory device for storing captured images; an output display carried by the housing; and a means of electronically transmitting stored images.