Glam girl Heddy Lamar may have used her good looks to good effect on the silver screen, but she put her smarts to better use as an inventor. During World War II, she co-patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was considered years ahead of its time.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7778542 | Image capturing apparatus This invention can efficiently remove, within a short period of time, a foreign substance such as dust adhering on an optical element arranged on the front surface of an image sensor. An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor which photo-electrically con... | 08/17/2010 |
| 7253575 | Industrial optical shutter A highly versatile optical shutter for industrial and scientific applications is disclosed. The has a aperture which defines a light path through the shutter, and a shutter vane or blade that is moved into and out of the light path using a precision, microprocessor ... | 08/07/2007 |
| 7245320 | Method and apparatus for automatic gain and exposure control for maintaining target image brightness in video imager systems In an image processing system, the imager gain and the exposure time are adjusted based on a predefined stepping sequence using a stepping table designed to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio in the image. This is achieved by providing a stepping sequence with each ... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7182530 | Electrode shutter device with start area A shutter device includes a stationary plate having a plurality of driving electrodes movable element opposes the stationary plate and including a sheet subjected to an electret-forming process. A drive control unit for moving the movable element using variation in ... | 02/27/2007 |
| 7053954 | Process for regulating the exposure time of a light sensor This invention relates to a process for regulating the exposure time of a light sensor, characterized in that it comprises the following steps: a) setting the exposure time of the sensor to a value selected in a first range of M pr... | 05/30/2006 |
| 7047283 | Apparatus and method of upgrading program of firmware board A program on a firmware board is upgraded without cutting off power or resort to additional firmware writing hardware by providing the board with a flash memory which stores a file for production and a production-processing program for updating the file. A host comp... | 05/16/2006 |
| 7023484 | Exposure control apparatus and method thereof The exposure control apparatus comprises screen divider which divides the screen into a many areas, and high luminance decider which decides, for each area of the screen, whether a main subject having a high luminance exists within that area. Further, average lumina... | 04/04/2006 |
| 7015959 | Image pickup apparatus for picking up and recording still or moving images and a method for controlling the same When an image pickup apparatus is changed over to a mode different from a photographing mode, such as a power-off mode or a reproducing mode, priority is given to writing a temporarily-recorded image in a recording medium, so that it is possible to surely preserve t... | 03/21/2006 |
| 6999123 | Method and apparatus for driving solid state image sensor An image sensing device includes a solid state image sensor, such as a CCD. An electronic shutter controls the exposure of the sensor to light, and thus the period during which the sensor collects or accumulates an information charge with light receiving pixels. The... | 02/14/2006 |
| 6766111 | Camera system having a communication system between a camera body and a photographing lens A camera system having a camera body and a photographing lens, which can be mounted to and dismounted from the camera body, includes a determining device which determines a type of the photographing lens in accordance with data received from the photographing lens; ... | 07/20/2004 |
| 6621987 | Method of fast converging appropriate exposure value A method of fast converging an appropriate exposure value. By establishing a EV lookup table of exposure valuescamera characteristics that can be easily modified, the image extracted by an optical sensor of a digital camera is fast converged into an appro... | 09/16/2003 |
| 6496651 | Method and apparatus for controlling exposure of camera An exposure control method and apparatus for a camera having a two-area divided brightness measurement system. A central light value is determined based on a central area brightness of a photographic scene, and a peripheral light value is determined based... | 12/17/2002 |
| 6442437 | Method for step motor control When the driver of a step motor is executed in a personal computer, its speed will be varied in response to the speed of the CPU. To provide a constant and stable speed of the step motor, the present invention automatically detects the system model and th... | 08/27/2002 |
| 6373522 | Electro-optical reconnaissance system with forward motion compensation An electro-optical framing camera forward motion compensation (FMC) system comprising a moving shutter and a full frame focal plane array detector is disclosed. The reconnaissance system is designed to minimize the variation of image motion from a target ... | 04/16/2002 |
| 6347191 | Shutter control apparatus A shutter control apparatus is constructed for executing an exposure operation of a camera to photograph an object by controlling an actuator which drives a shutter blade to be opened and closed. In the shutter control apparatus, a battery supplies a powe... | 02/12/2002 |
| 6256057 | Electro-optical reconnaissance system with forward motion compensation An electro-optical framing camera forward motion compensation (FMC) reconnaissance system comprising a moving shutter and a full frame focal plane array detector is designed to minimize the variation of image motion from a target scene across the focal pl... | 07/03/2001 |
| 6091908 | Photometric device and method for a camera A photographic device eliminates photometric errors that occur in photometry, obtains a more accurate exposure, and shortens the time required for photometry. The device includes an orientation position detector and photographic mode setter, which outputs... | 07/18/2000 |
| 6040951 | Optical apparatus having hard circuit board encoder An optical apparatus comprises a lens which can be moved in the direction of the optical axis, a moving unit for moving the lens, and a signal generator for detecting information about the movement of the lens, the signal generator comprising a wiring boa... | 03/21/2000 |
| 5983031 | Lens shutter camera equipped with zoom lens system The rotation of the motor 60 located outside the lens barrel is transmitted to the shutter blades 74 that move along the optical axis together with the lens barrel by means of the gear train 62, the drive shaft 64 that is engaged with the output gear 63 o... | 11/09/1999 |
| 5862420 | Control device for a camera shutter and a control method therefor A control device for a camera shutter comprises a diaphragm value setting device for setting a predetermined diaphragm value of the shutter, an exposure value setting device for setting an exposure value of the shutter, a storing device for storing an ope... | 01/19/1999 |
| 5835800 | Camera and recording medium forwarding device suitable for use in a camera A camera has a calculator which calculates a photographing condition suitable for a selected exposure mode. A driving device of the camera performs a photographing operation in accordance with a nominal value of an exposure parameter calculated by the cal... | 11/10/1998 |
| 5831676 | Image pickup device using plural control parameters for exposure control An image pickup device capable of exposure control utilizing the iris aperture, shutter speed and gain as three control parameters, comprising means for setting a photometry area in the image frame; means for setting an input parameter as a reference for ... | 11/03/1998 |
| 5828911 | One chip microcomputer built-in system A CPU in a one-chip microcomputer executes a control operation in accordance with program data stored in part of a flash memory capable of erasing/writing data in each memory block defined in the flash memory. A write controller writes data in a specific ... | 10/27/1998 |
| 5825417 | Exposure control device of a video camera and method therefor An automatic exposure control device of a video camera for recording and tie-recording with proper exposure level including an iris mechanism having a two-fin type iris rotated by a ring portion of which the rotational speed is in proportion to an iris co... | 10/20/1998 |
| 5826119 | Shutter-priority automatic exposure camera A camera operable in shutter-priority automatic exposure mode comprises a photometric circuit, an exposure data memory circuit for storing information on a plurality of selectable diaphragm openings, and a control circuit for calculating a desirable diaph... | 10/20/1998 |
| 5790905 | Exposure controlling device for camera The exposure controlling device comprises a controlling unit that controls, at the time of an exposure, the DC motor to rotate forward to open the shutter blades and then to rotate reversely to close the shutter blades, a calculating unit that calculates ... | 08/04/1998 |
| 5745808 | Camera exposure control system using variable-length exposure tables A photographic camera includes a photosensitive image receiver for generating an image, an optical system for focusing incident light representative of the image upon the receiver, and an exposure control section for generating an exposure value from the ... | 04/28/1998 |
| 5606392 | Camera using calibrated aperture settings for exposure control A camera includes a mechanically-controlled aperture mechanism providing two or more aperture sizes for regulation of the intensity of image light gathered by the camera, a storage device for storing aperture calibration data corresponding to the measured... | 02/25/1997 |
| 5311245 | Camera system operable by carrying data from a camera accessory to a camera body A camera system operable with data carried from a camera accessory to a camera body. The camera accessory has a ROM for storing various data at a plurality of addresses, respectively, each of which data consists of a plurality of bits, and a coupling term... | 05/10/1994 |
| 5255049 | Shutter control device for camera and control method therefor A shutter control device for a camera includes a control arrangement for controlling the opening and closing of the shutter as a function of an exposure value and a diaphragm value. The control arrangement stores values corresponding to a predetermined di... | 10/19/1993 |
| 5245380 | Shutter and iris combined automatic exposure device An automatic exposure device having an exposure sensor and a microprocessor includes a plurality of shuris wings each having a window of a given shape to be movable in respect to each other a motor controlled by the microprocessor for driving the movement... | 09/14/1993 |
| 5220376 | Arrangement for compensating for variable speed of a camera shutter A camera shutter system has a motor driven sector for opening and closing a shutter opening. A photo-interruptor is positioned to intercept a light beam, to effect the outputting by the photo-interruptor of a signal pulse corresponding to the speed of the... | 06/15/1993 |
| 5198850 | Camera having e2 prom A camera comprising E2 PROM storing therein writing data for check sum and a plurality of adjustment data for compensating the control value of the camera to control the camera properly, and capable of electrically rewriting the data and holdin... | 03/30/1993 |
| 5153631 | Photometric device for a camera A camera photometric device includes a light receiving element operated by incident light for outputting photometric data. A storage arrangement stores a plurality of photometric data correction tables. An A/D converting circuit has a digital output for a... | 10/06/1992 |
| 5070354 | Exposure control unit for a motor-driven shutter An exposure control unit for controlling a motor-driven shutter includes an arrangement for interpolating, with linear approximation, between values in an exposure data table, in order to enable finer adjustment of the shutter without increasing the amoun... | 12/03/1991 |
| 5017955 | Autofocus camera with flash unit A camera is provided with a data table memory which stores control data for controlling not only the position of a taking lens but also the aperture size of a program shutter. The data also determines whether a flash unit is to be actuated depending on th... | 05/21/1991 |
| 4978991 | Open-loop stepper motor controlled shutter An exposure control system for a camera having a scanning type shutter mechanism for forming a range of aperture areas through which a photographic image is formed includes a stepper motor and a regulator or open loop control system therefor, to actuate t... | 12/18/1990 |
| 4931823 | Multimode cameras A multimode camera comprises means for independently setting an aperture and a shutter speed to their optional values, means for selectively setting an AV-TV characteristic line in accordance with the aperture and shutter speed which have been set by the ... | 06/05/1990 |
| 4908651 | Exposure control device for a camera An exposure control device for a camera having light measuring elements capable of outputting an average light measurement corresponding to the brightness of the entire scene to be photographed, and outputting a spot light measurement corresponding to the... | 03/13/1990 |
| 4833498 | Camera This invention is based on the discovery of the fact that a proportional relationship exits between a reciprocal of an exit pupil of a photographic lens and an error in light measurement value and provides a camera which is characterized by the provision ... | 05/23/1989 |