Patent ID: 8314880

Claim:
A photographic illumination device, comprising: a current-controlled light emission unit that manifests a proportional relationship between a drive current and a light emission intensity and emits illuminating light toward a subject, wherein the light emission intensity of the illuminating light is controlled to vary according to the drive current; a range finding unit that detects distance information indicating a distance to a main subject; and a light emission control unit that controls the current-controlled light emission unit to emit light in a quantity calculated by using the distance information detected by the range finding unit and an exposure time corresponding to a shutter speed, an aperture value and a photographic sensitivity set in a camera, when capturing an image of the subject by the camera, wherein the light emission control unit calculates a value of the drive current with which the current-controlled light emission unit emits the illuminating light continuously over a time length determined according to the exposure time to achieve the quantity of emitted light, and the light emission control unit, within a period of the exposure time, gradually increases the drive current that is continuously supplied to the current-controlled light emission unit so that the current-controlled light emission unit emits light in the calculated quantity and stops supplying the drive current once an integrated value representing light having been reflected off the subject illuminated by the current-controlled light emission unit becomes equal to a value corresponding to the calculated light quantity.