Patent ID: 7787760

Claim:
A lens aperture-adjustment device enabling switching between automatic adjustment and manual adjustment of a lens aperture mechanism, the lens aperture-adjustment device comprising: a geared motor that drives aperture blades of the lens aperture mechanism; a drive circuit that drives the geared motor in response to one of a first drive signal for automatic adjustment and a second drive signal for manual adjustment; a comparison circuit that makes a comparison between a lightness information signal of an imaging environment and a first reference signal corresponding to a target lightness and outputs the first signal for determining a drive amount of the geared motor for driving the aperture blades so as to cancel out a difference between the lightness information signal and the first reference signal; a differential amplifier to which a manual adjustment signal and a second reference signal responsive to the manual adjustment signal for defining a limit value of a drive amount of the geared motor are input, the differential amplifier outputting the second drive signal in a range not exceeding the limit value; and a selection circuit that selects and outputs one of the first drive signal and the second drive signal to the drive circuit.