Patent ID: 7969505

Claim:
An electronic device comprising: an operations unit disposed in a device main body for input operations; a camera unit including a camera for image capturing and a light source that emits light to provide either an auxiliary image capturing function or an operations-unit illuminating function, both the camera and the light source being housed in a casing of the camera unit, and a light irradiation position of the light source being variable so that the light source illuminates the operations unit; a light intensity detector to detect a brightness level of the light irradiation position of the light source on the operations unit; and a control unit to separate the emission of light by the light source from the image capturing by the camera when the camera unit is in an operations-unit illuminating position for emitting light to provide the operations-unit illuminating function, to interlock the emission of light by the light source with the image capturing by the camera when the camera unit is in an image capturing position for emitting light to provide the auxiliary image capturing function, and to start the emission of light by the light source to provide the operations-unit illuminating function when the brightness level detected by the light intensity detector is below a threshold level.