Patent ID: 8488055

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a sensor timing signal associated with the acquisition of image frames using a digital image sensor, wherein the sensor timing signal indicates time intervals at which the image frames are acquired; providing a first delayed timing signal to an interface between the digital image sensor and an image signal processing system, wherein the first delayed timing signal is delayed relative to the sensor timing signal by a first time amount; providing a second delayed timing signal to flash control logic of the image signal processing system, wherein the second delayed timing signal is delayed relative to the first delayed timing signal by a second time amount and delayed relative to the sensor timing signal by a third time amount; determining whether to apply flash illumination during the acquisition of a target image frame of the image frames acquired by the digital image sensor; and when flash illumination is to be provided to the target image frame, using the second delayed timing signal to identify a first time corresponding to an end of a previous image frame immediately preceding the target image frame, adding a fourth time amount to the first time to obtain a second time, subtracting a first offset from the second time to obtain a third time, subtracting a second offset from the third time to obtain a fourth time, and activating a flash module at the fourth time.