Patent Document ID: 20030021600
Application ID: 10027979
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1 In a camera comprising: (a) a focusing lens for capturing light from an illuminated subject and focusing a portion of that light onto a light-receptive medium or device; (b) a motor and drive means for moving the focusing lens so as to change the focus of the image of the subject on the light-receptive medium or device; (c) control circuitry that controls the operation of the motor and drive means in response to a received input signal; (d) a focus detection unit, responsive to voltage scans representing light intensity, and operating to calculate a defocus amount that is transmitted as the input signal to the control circuitry; (e) an autofocus sensor comprising a backing substrate and at least one focus detector each of which provides voltage data to the focus detection unit, said focus detectors each comprising one or more pairs of CCD sensor strips, each of which sensor strips: (i) comprises a line of CCD sensors; (ii) supplies, at intervals, the voltages produced on the CCD sensors to the focus detection unit for use in the calculation of the defocus amount; and (f) an optical path provided by one or more mirrors, prisms and lenses for reflecting and focusing a portion of the light arriving from the focusing lens onto the CCD sensors in the autofocus sensor; the improvement characterized in that the autofocus sensor has one or more focus detectors in which the CCD sensor strips are curved and arranged to follow arcs of circles of identical diameters or to form the circumferences of one or more circles of identical diameters.