Patent ID: 8649672

Claim:
A camera driving apparatus, comprising: a camera section including an imaging element having an imaging plane, a lens having an optical axis for forming an image of a subject on the imaging plane, and a lens barrel for holding the lens; a fixed unit including a protrusion section formed of a magnetic member at least partially and having a shape of at least a part of a spherical face; a movable unit for supporting the camera section, the movable unit including an attracting magnet for generating a magnetic attracting force for the magnetic member, and a conical contact face with which the protrusion section of the fixed unit is loosely engageable and contactable by the magnetic attracting force, the movable unit being freely pivotable with respect to a sphere center of the spherical face of the protrusion section; a panning driving section for inclining the camera section with respect to the fixed unit in a panning direction; a tilting driving section for inclining the camera section with respect to the fixed unit in a tilting direction which is perpendicular to the panning direction; a rolling driving section for rotating the camera section with respect to the fixed unit in a rolling direction around the optical axis of the lens; a detector for detecting an inclining angle of the camera section with respect to the fixed unit in the panning and tilting directions and a rotating angle of the camera section in the rolling direction; and a fall preventive member including a fall preventive regulation section distanced from the movable unit by a prescribed gap in a direction of the optical axis, the fall preventive member being fixed to the fixed unit, wherein the fall preventive member includes four fall preventive regulation sections; the four fall preventive regulation sections are provided in the form of two pairs and extend toward the optical axis; and the two pairs of fall preventive regulation sections are respectively located on two straight lines which are perpendicular to each other and have an angle of 45 degrees with respect to a rotation axis of inclination around which the movable unit is inclined in the panning direction and a rotation axis of inclination around which the movable unit is inclined in the tilting direction.