Patent ID: 7397501

Claim:
A digital camera with lens for depicting a scene being composed of objects within a field of view, at various object-distances in front of said objective, a focus-selector and a focusing device for setting the focus of the camera at different distances, at least one electronic image detector with entrance plane for detection and register of image information answering to an image of the scene being depicted, plus an associated image-sharpness detector, wherein a) said focusing device being arranged for simultaneous focusing of this instrument at different object-distances, and/or a time-sequential focusing procedure is being used, b) an image detection being arranged in such a way that image information equivalent to at least two differently-focused images, i.e. with mutually different states of focus and depicting the same scene, are detected, c) means being allocated for letting said image-sharpness detector, directly or indirectly and from each such set of corresponding differently-focused images, select/extract and forward such components/parts of the image information, which contribute to the most optimal picture definition and let this said selected image information from the same set of mutually corresponding pictures, merge into a final image with better resolution than the differently-focused images detected individually, and d) means being arranged for selecting individual focus-distances, using said focus-selector, answering to at least one of said differently-focused images, this constituting an optional pre-selection of individual states of focus, before image registration takes place; wherein the camera is furnished with a focus-registrar contrivance and at least one focus-memory, wherein means are arranged for registration of single states of focus as well as sets of such priority-states and furthermore forward such information to said memory for saving.