Patent ID: 8493466

Claim:
A portable digital camera device having no photographic film, comprising: a digital image capturing apparatus including an image sensor for capturing a main image including a face region, focusing means configured to acquire multiple images at least approximately of said same scene as the main image including said face region and at different focus distances and at different degrees of focus based on the different focus distances; processing means configured to analyze the different degrees of focus based on the different focus distances and to determine an approximate distance to the face and to focus the face on the one or more image sensors; a dedicated hardware subsystem which is provided image data directly from the image sensor; a face filter for determining a group of pixels that include the face region within the image data; a subsampling module for changing a degree of subsampling based on a complexity of calculation for said face filter; and a main system memory which receives raw image data and metadata as implemented by the dedicated hardware subsystem; and wherein the main system memory is configured to receive metadata that comprises one or more identified face regions within the main image.