IMAGE PICKUP APPARATUS CAPABLE OF KEEPING FOCUS ON SUBJECT EVEN WHEN MOVING DIRECTION OF SUBJECT CHANGES IN TIME SERIES, CONTROL METHOD FOR IMAGE PICKUP APPARATUS, AND STORAGE MEDIUM

• Main Authors: Hamano, Hideyuki, Kanda, Akihiko
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 25.08.2022
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION

An image pickup apparatus capable of keeping a focus on a subject even when a moving direction of the subject changes in time series is provided. The image pickup apparatus comprising at least one processor and/or circuit configured to function as following units, an image pickup unit configured to pick up a subject image formed by an image pickup optical system and generate image data, a subject detecting unit configured to detect a subject included in the image data generated by the image pickup unit and obtain a subject detection result, a focus detection unit configured to obtain a focus detection result of a focus detection area, which is set based on the subject detection result, and a control unit configured to perform a predictive calculation, which predicts a position of the subject detected by the subject detecting unit at a time after a predetermined period of time has elapsed from a focus detection time, and perform focus control of the image pickup optical system. The control unit changes at least one of a subject position prediction condition and a focus control condition according to time-series changes in the subject detection result obtained by the subject detecting unit and the focus detection result obtained by the focus detection unit.