Patent ID: 7884862

Claim:
A stereoscopic camera, comprising: a first optical system generating an optical image with a stereoscopic effect, the first optical system including a first lens disposed at a first position imaging a subject image on a first imaging element, and the first imaging element, the subject image being recorded from the first imaging element; a second optical system generating an optical image of the subject image with the stereoscopic effect in the same manner as the first optical system, the second optical system including a second lens having the same shape and same optical zoom magnifying power as the first lens, the second lens disposed at a second position different than the first position, imaging the subject image on a second imaging element, and the second imaging element having the same light sensitivity as the first imaging element, the subject image being recorded from the second imaging element; plural moving units including a first moving unit moving the first lens in an optical axis direction to change an optical zoom magnifying power of the first lens, and a second moving unit moving the second lens in the optical axis direction to change an optical zoom magnifying power of the second lens; a zoom operation unit including a zoom switch that is operated by a user when changing a zoom magnifying power of the subject image; a photographing operation unit including a shutter button that is operated when executing photographing, the shutter button being fully depressed to instruct photographing; a detecting unit that detects a first state or a second state of the shutter button, the first state being a state when the shutter button is not depressed after the zoom switch is operated, the second state being a state when the shutter button is depressed an amount less than fully depressed amount after the zoom switch is operated; and a control unit that, when the detecting unit detects the shutter button is in the first state, controls the first moving unit so that the optical zoom magnifying power of the first optical system becomes a zoom magnifying power dictated by an operation of the zoom operation unit and a part of a focusing operation of the first lens is performed, and when the detecting unit detects that the shutter button is in the second state, controls the second moving unit so that the optical zoom magnifying power of the second optical system becomes the zoom magnifying power dictated by the operation of the zoom operation unit and remainder of the focusing operation of the first lens is performed, wherein the first and second lenses are controlled by the control unit using the corresponding moving units respectively.