Patent ID: 7693406

Claim:
An image capturing apparatus comprising: a shake amount detecting unit that detects a shake amount including an x-axis shake amount (θx) in the x-axis direction and a y-axis shake amount (θy) in the y-axis direction; a composition determining unit that determines whether a composition of a picture is determined during image capturing on the basis of a correlation among a plurality of frames by comparing a current frame with a previous frame and determining that the composition of the picture is determined when the correlation between the current frame and the previous frame is greater than a predetermined reference correlation value; a shake correcting unit that performs a shake correcting process on a captured image on the basis of the detected shake amount, the shake correcting unit starting the shake correcting process by supplying power to a camera shake correcting mechanism for driving a lens of the image capturing apparatus; a correction control unit that controls the shake correcting unit to start the shake correcting process when the shake amount is smaller than a predetermined reference shake amount and when the composition of the picture has been determined by the composition determining unit a predetermined reference number of times within a predetermined period of time; an autofocus correcting unit that determines an autofocus correction amount (ΔL) on the basis of the x-axis shake amount (θx) and the y-axis shake amount (θy) according to the following equations: ΔL=ΔLx+ΔLy, ΔLy= ( L /cos θ y )− L, ΔLx= ( L 1/cos θ x )− L 1, and L 1 =L+ΔLy, wherein L is a distance to a virtual subject obtained by correcting only the x-axis shake amount (θx), L1 is a distance to a virtual subject obtained by correcting only the y-axis shake amount (θy), and wherein the autofocus correcting unit determines a corrected focal position based on the autofocus correction amount (ΔL); and an autofocus mechanism that automatically brings a subject into focus by moving a lens of the image capturing apparatus based on the corrected focal position.