Patent ID: 7312826

Claim:
A digital camera in which the timing to take in incident light from a field is made to correspond to an operation of a shutter button by an operator in order to convert the incident light into an electrical signal, the electrical signal is output as an imaging signal, and image data obtained by digitizing the imaging signal are rendered a signal processing, the digital camera comprising: an operating device that operates the camera including the shutter button; an automatic exposure (AE) drive circuit; a charge coupled device (CCD) drive circuit; a signal processing section comprising a clock generating device that generates a clock signal having one of a plurality of oscillation frequencies each corresponding to an operation of the operating device, wherein the signal processing section also supplies various parameters found by the signal processing section; a time measuring device that measures time depending on the operation resulting from the operator operating the operating device; and a systems control device that determines an operational state of the camera based on whether or not operation signals that indicate operations of the operating device are present and that controls the clock generating device and the power supply of the camera, the systems control device using the various parameters supplied by the signal processing section to generate control signals that are supplied to and operate the AE drive circuit and the CCD drive circuit based on the clock signal, wherein the signal processing section further comprises an evaluation value calculation section that calculates the various parameters supplied to the systems control device based on image data supplied to the signal processing section, wherein the systems control device performs an actual imaging control to generate, in an imaging mode that includes a sequence to output, convert and record imaging signals as image data and in response to a depressing operation of the shutter button, the clock signal having an oscillation frequency higher than a normal oscillation frequency from among the plurality of oscillation frequencies generated by the clock generating device, a normal control to generate, in an imaging preparation mode, the clock signal having the normal oscillation frequency in a period after the actual imaging control or in a period starting from an initial power supply until a predetermined amount of time has passed, and an energy saving control to generate the clock signal having a frequency lower than the normal oscillation frequency while continuing monitoring the operation signals upon passage of the predetermined amount of time.