An image pickup apparatus for obtaining a color image over a wider luminance range

Abstract

Abstract A plurality of shutter times are set to an image pickup device and an image is taken in a way to separate an incident light amount range into a low and a high luminance and, through the signal processing, it is possible to take an image over a wider dark to bright light amount range and, in particular, obtain a better color reproduction over a wider luminance range. In the case where an (R-Y) signal and (B-Y) signal are processed with a low-speed and high-speed shutter signal obtained and the high-speed shutter signal is subjected to logarithmic conversion and a bias signal is applied to provide a continuity with the low-speed shutter signal, processing is performed on a comparing section, characteristic conversion section and calculating section so that a greater one of the (R-Y) and (B-Y) signals is subjected to logarithmic conversion and the other signal is subjected to characteristic conversion in accordance with a value corresponding to a conversion ratio (591 to 503). Further, in the case where a bias voltage is applied to the greater color difference signal, a bias voltage is found in accordance with a ratio of the greater color difference signal and smaller color difference signal and applied to the other smaller color difference signal (511 to 515).

Inventors

• 👤 Itsuzo Sato
• 👤 Kazushige Ooi

Bibliographic Details