Patent ID: 7948551

Claim:
A filed sequential color camera system, comprising: a color camera comprising a separation optical system adapted to separate an optical image of a subject incident from a lens in two directions; two solid-state imaging devices to convert into electric signals the respective optical images separated in the two directions; an electronic shutter control means to apply sequential exposure control to said two solid-state imaging devices within a time corresponding to a ½ frame for each one frame and at a non-overlapping interval; and a light-emitting sync signal output means to produce a light-emitting sync signal in sync with the sequential exposure control by said electronic shutter control means, and an illumination unit to receive said light-emitting sync signal from said color camera to emit multicolor light having different wavelength ranges in sync with exposure control of said solid-state imaging devices and in a sequential switch mode, wherein said color camera further comprises: two frame memories to simultaneously record a still image produced out of each of said two solid-state imaging device and an emitting sync signal from said electronic shutter control means; a memory output switch means to read the still image recorded in said frame memories repetitively a plurality of times so that said emitting sync signal is identified as a still image having an observable time length to produce it in a controlled way; and an image synthesis means to synthesize said multicolor still images having an observable time length into a color image which is in turn produced to an image output terminal, said image synthesis means producing said multicolor still images at the same timing while they are corrected for a time difference between the respective imaging timings.