Patent ID: 8831282

Claim:
An imaging device, comprising: an image input section which sequentially inputs image data with a predetermined time interval; a face detector configured to detect a face area of a subject from the image data; a rotational motion detector configured to detect a rotational motion between two frames of image data input with the predetermined time interval; and a controller configured to control the imaging device to execute a predetermined operation when the rotational motion is detected by the rotational motion detector, wherein the rotational motion detector is configured to detect at least one candidate of rotational motion between the two frames of image data and calculate a coordinate of a rotation center and a rotational angle of said at least one candidate, and determine whether or not said at least one candidate is the rotational motion on the basis of a central coordinate of the face area detected by the face detector, the coordinate of the rotation center and the rotational angle, and wherein the rotational motion detector is further configured to set a search area on the basis of the face area detected by the face detector, divide each of the two frames of the image data into blocks of a predetermined number of pixels, detect a motion in each of the blocks in the search area, and extract at least one block in which the motion has been detected, detect an amount of motion in the extracted block as a motion vector, and calculate the coordinate of the rotation center and the rotational angle by using the motion vector as the candidate of rotational motion.