Patent ID: 6862140

Claim:
A stereoscopic image pickup system for obtaining parallactic images, said stereoscopic image pickup system comprising: a pair of front optical components, said pair of front optical components respectively including (a) a pair of reflecting members, each reflecting member rotating around a respective predetermined axis at a first speed, and (b) a pair of amount-of-light control members arranged to respectively vary amounts of transmission of light fluxes traveling from said pair of reflecting members alternately in a time-series manner; a combining optical member arranged to superpose optical axes of said pair of front optical components; a rear optical component, said rear component including a zooming optical member, the zooming optical member moving on an optical axis superposed by said combining optical member at a second speed so as to vary an image magnification; and a controller for calculating the first speed of each one of the pair of reflecting members in accordance with the second speed of the zooming optical member, so that an amount of parallax of parallactic images is within a predetermined range, wherein said pair of amount-of-light control members are positioned between said pair of reflecting members and said optical member, respectively, along the optical axes.