Patent ID: 6982749

Claim:
A remote control camera system which is remote-controlled by a plurality of users, said remote control camera comprising: an image pickup device capable of picking up a live image and outputting said live image to outside; a changing element for changing a pickup direction of said image pickup device; a composing element for forming composite image information by continuously composing a plurality of pieces of image information picked up by said image pickup device in different image pickup directions; a memory for storing said composite image information; an extraction element for forming extracted image information derived from said composite image information in response to a request from outside; an output device for outputting said extracted image information; a controlling element for repeating an operation of forming a composite image and storing said composite image by overwriting said memory at a given timing; and live image output device for outputting a live image, wherein, in the case when there is a request from outside for changing said pickup direction while picking up and outputting said live image, said controlling element obtains said extracted image information derived from said composite image information and outputs said extracted image information in response to said request from outside without changing said pickup direction of said image pickup device, and in the case when there is not any request from outside for a predetermined period of time, said image pickup device is directed in the direction in which an extracted image lastly output was picked up, and a live image picked up by said image pickup device is output through said live image output device.