Patent ID: 8274548

Claim:
A network camera system comprising: an image pickup device that has a wide-angle lens which can be controlled for panning, tilting, and zooming; and a control unit that is connected to said image pickup device, via a network, for controlling said image pickup device, wherein said control unit comprises: a panoramic image generation unit configured to generate a panoramic image by connecting a plurality of images picked up by said image pickup device based on a coordinate system that is a function of pan and tilt angles of the image pickup device; and a zoom unit configured to change a zoom magnification of the image pickup device when the network camera system is in a panoramic shooting mode, wherein the control unit is configured to control the image pickup device to pickup one or more of the plurality of images after the zoom unit changes the zoom magnification, and wherein the zoom unit is configured to increase the zoom magnification as a position of the panning and tilting becomes closer to a center position, according to the coordinate system, of the panoramic image to be generated by the panoramic image generation unit.