JPH0615048U - Camera and accessory equipment that can illuminate the display screen - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Purpose] When multiple devices such as a camera and accessories are equipped with lights, all devices can be turned on and off by operating only one operating member, and communication between the devices must be performed. Does not cause malfunction of lighting. [Structure] In a backlight lighting subroutine of a camera and an electronic flash device, the following processing is performed. The CPU confirms that the backlight is on (S10
1) If the lighting flag transmitted two times before is 0, always return to the main routine (S11).
5) Next, the lighting flag 1 is transmitted to the outside.

Description

[Detailed description of the device]

[0001]

[Industrial applications]

 The present invention relates to a camera capable of illuminating a display screen and an accessory device display illumination device for the camera.

[0002]

[Prior art]

 It is known that a camera or an accessory thereof is provided with a liquid crystal display member and is provided with an LED, an EL (electroluminescence) or the like as a backlight for illuminating the display portion thereof. Furthermore, there was a technology for linking the camera and the backlight of an accessory, as in Japanese Patent Application No. 4-1342.

[0003]

[Problems to be solved by the device]

 In Japanese Patent Application No. 4-12342, it was found that the display lighting device goes into a blinking state for the following reasons. 6 is a drawing corresponding to FIG. 6 of Japanese Patent Application No. 4-1342, and shows how flag information relating to control of a display illumination device of a camera and an electronic flash device is transmitted.

The horizontal axis represents the passage of time, the dotted line represents the timing of each communication, and shows the change of the flag viewed from the external device. This communication is carried out periodically at the command of the CPU of the camera or electronic flash device. When the display lighting device (EL) of the camera is turned on, the camera EL lighting flag is turned on. At the timing a, information that the camera EL lighting flag is ON is transmitted to the CPU of the electronic flash device, and in response to this, the display lighting device (EL) of the electronic flash device is lit between ab and the electronic flash device EL flag is turned on. Turns on. Information that the electronic flash device EL lighting flag is turned on is transmitted to the CPU of the camera at the timing of b.

When the display illumination device (EL) of the camera is turned off, the camera EL lighting flag is turned off. At timing c, information that the camera EL lighting flag is OFF is transmitted to the CPU of the electronic flash device, and in response to this, the display lighting device (EL) of the electronic flash device is turned off between cd, and the electronic flash device EL is turned off. The lighting flag is turned off. Information that the electronic flash device EL lighting flag is turned off is transmitted to the CPU of the camera at the timing of d.

The time interval between the communications does not have to be constant. The time for processing the EL control subroutine is set shorter than the communication interval of the flag information. The above is the normal control, but the state of the flag when a problem occurs after the timing e is shown next. As with the timing a, the timing e informs the electronic flash device that the display lighting device of the camera is turned on. However, if the display illumination device of the camera is turned off by the timing f which is the next communication, the camera EL lighting flag will be turned off in the next communication. By the way, in Japanese Patent Application No. 4-1342-2, when the response on the electronic flash device side is seen, the electronic flash device EL lighting flag is turned on at the timing f in response to the communication at the timing e. In other words, if attention is paid to the communication of this timing f, the camera declares that the light is off and the electronic flash device declares that it is on. Then, in the next communication at the timing g, the respective flags are inverted, and the above is repeated thereafter. Therefore, the display lighting device blinks alternately between the camera and the electronic flash device, which gives the user discomfort.

As described above, the flag is inverted between the timings e and f because the switch, which is the operation member for turning on and off the display lighting device, has chattering, and the light is switched from lighting to extinguishing in an instant. In some cases, other processing takes time and the communication interval becomes longer. Once this state is entered, it is theoretically impossible to get out, so countermeasures are needed.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a control means for preventing a blinking state of illumination due to chattering in a camera and an electronic flash device in which illumination is operated in conjunction.

[0009]

[Means for Solving the Problems]

 The camera and accessory equipment have the following configurations. It has a display means such as a liquid crystal display, a lighting means that is turned on to illuminate the display screen of the display means, an operation member that is operated to turn on and off the lighting means, a communication means and a control means. .

The control means turns on the lighting means when the operation member is turned on or when a lighting signal is received from the outside through the communication means, and when the operation member is turned off or communication is performed. The lighting means is turned off when an extinguishing signal is received from outside via the means. When the control means repeatedly outputs the signal to the outside via the communication means, and the signal output to the outside via the communication means differs from the previous time and the previous time, regardless of the signal received via the operation member and the communication means. , The same signal as the last time is sent by the control means at the next communication.

[0011]

[Action]

 When the lighting and extinguishing signals output by the camera and accessory devices change from the previous time to the previous time, the same signal will be output next time. As a result, the declaration of lighting and the declaration of extinguishment do not occur repeatedly at the same time, so the lighting means does not blink alternately for each communication between the camera and its accessories.

[0012]

【Example】

 An embodiment will be described in which an electronic flash device is attached to a camera to perform flash photography. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the camera 10 and the electronic flash device 20 attached to the camera 10. It should be noted that illustration and description of components of the camera and electronic flash device that are not directly related to the present invention are omitted.

The camera 10 and the electronic flash device 20 each include a display device (not shown). The camera 10 includes an EL 15 that illuminates the display screen of the display, an EL drive circuit 14 that applies a voltage to the EL 15 to turn it on, an operating member 11 that turns the EL 15 on and off, and an accessory shoe (not shown). A communication circuit 13 for exchanging signals with the electronic flash device 20 via the electronic flash device 20, and an EL drive circuit 14 and a microcomputer (hereinafter, referred to as CPU) 12 for controlling the communication circuit 13 are provided.

The electronic flash device 20 includes an EL 25 for illuminating the display screen of the display, an EL drive circuit 24 for applying a voltage to the EL 25 to turn it on, an operation member 21 for turning on and off the EL 25, and an accessory shoe. A communication circuit 23 that transmits and receives signals to and from the camera 10 via the camera, and an EL drive circuit 24 and a CPU 22 that controls the communication circuit 23 are provided.

The operating members 11 and 21 can be repeatedly turned on and off each time they are operated. Further, when the camera 10 and the electronic flash device 20 are not linked, the EL15 or EL25 is individually turned on and off by the respective operating members 11 or 21. In this embodiment, an example in which the dedicated operation members 11 and 21 are used for turning on and off the display illumination device is shown. However, no dedicated operation member is provided, and for example, in a camera, a shutter release button and a photographing mode. The light may be turned on when an operation member such as a selector or a shutter dial is operated. In this case, the timer may be used to turn on the light and then turn off the light after a predetermined time. Further, turning on and off by these operating members and turning on and off by a dedicated operating member may be used together.

In addition, although an example using the ELs 15 and 25 is shown in this embodiment, the display lighting device is not limited to the EL, and an LED or a lamp may be used, for example. FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing an EL control subroutine executed by the CPUs 12 and 22. This EL control subroutine is a control program common to the camera 10 and the electronic flash device 20, and is called and executed periodically from the main program of the camera 10 or the electronic flash device 20 to turn on / off the respective display illumination devices. Do. In the following, in order to make the description easier to understand, the case where the EL control subroutine is executed by the CPU 12 of the camera 10 will be described as an example.

In this embodiment, when communicating between the camera 10 and the electronic flash device 20, the camera EL lighting flag and the electronic flash device EL lighting flag are used. The former is a flag that is set (flag = 1) when the EL15 of the camera 10 is turned on and reset (flag = 0) when it is turned off. Information of this flag is sent from the camera 10 to the electronic flash device 20. Sent. The latter is a flag that is set (1) when the EL 25 of the electronic flash device 20 is turned on and reset (0) when it is turned off, and the information of this flag is transmitted from the electronic flash device 20 to the camera 10. It

In step S101, first, it is determined whether or not the EL 15 is lighting, and if it is not lighting, the process proceeds to step S102 and thereafter to perform lighting control, and if it is lighting, proceeds to step S115 and thereafter to perform extinguishing control. To do. First, in step S102, it is determined whether or not the operating member 11 has been operated. When the operating member 11 is operated, the process proceeds to step S105, and the EL 15 is unconditionally turned on because the operating member 11 was operated while the light was off. On the other hand, if the operation member 11 has not been operated, the process proceeds to step S103, and it is determined whether or not the electronic flash device EL lighting flag received in the previous communication with the electronic flash device 20 is 1. If it is 1, the EL 25 of the electronic flash device 20 is lit, so the EL 15 of the camera 10 may be lit up immediately, but in order to avoid erroneous lighting due to a communication error or the like, in the subsequent step S104, It is determined whether or not the electronic flash device EL lighting flag received by the communication of is 0. If it is 0, it is confirmed that the flag on the electronic flash device side has changed from 0 to 1, so that the process proceeds to step S105 and the EL 15 is turned on.

When it is determined in step S103 that the previous electronic flash device EL flag is not 1, that is, when the EL 25 of the electronic flash device 20 is off, the process returns to the main program. When it is determined in step S103 that the previous electronic flash device EL lighting flag is 1, and in step S104 that the previous electronic flash device EL lighting flag is not 0, the process returns to the main program. After returning to the main program, the flag data is sent.

Next, in step S106, the EL lighting timer that measures the lighting time of the EL 15 is cleared and started. In step S107, the camera EL lighting flag is set to 1 and the process returns to the main program. As a result, it can be transmitted to the electronic flash device 20 that the EL 15 of the camera 10 is turned on in the next communication with the electronic flash device 20. Once the EL 15 of the camera 10 is turned on, step S101 is positive when the subroutine is executed next time and the process proceeds to step S115.

The step S115 is different from Japanese Patent Application No. 4-134232. Since it is confirmed in step 101 that lighting is in progress, the EL lighting flag 1 has been transmitted to the electronic flash device side in the previous transmission. In step S115, it is checked whether or not the camera EL lighting flag of 0 has been transmitted in the communication two times before. If 0 is transmitted, the process immediately proceeds to step S114. Therefore, the camera EL lighting flag does not change, and the flag does not become 0 in the next communication when the camera EL lighting flag is started. Regardless of the operation of the operation member 11 and the signal received from the electronic flash unit, if the CPU of the camera sends 0 for the EL flag of the camera two times before the last time and 1 for the previous time, be sure to next time. 1 will be transmitted.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step 115 that the previously transmitted flag is 1, the process proceeds to step S108 and subsequent steps. In step S108, it is determined whether or not the operating member 11 has been operated, and when operated, the process proceeds to step S112, and since the operating member 11 has been operated during lighting, the EL 15 is unconditionally turned off.

On the other hand, if the operation member 11 is not operated, the process proceeds to step S109, and it is determined whether or not the electronic flash device EL lighting flag received in the previous communication with the electronic flash device 20 is 0. If it is 0, the EL 25 of the electronic flash device 20 is turned off. Therefore, the EL 15 of the camera 10 may be turned off immediately in conjunction with it, but in order to avoid accidentally turning off the EL 15 due to a communication error or the like, in the subsequent step S110. Then, it is determined whether or not the electronic flash device EL lighting flag received in the communication two times before is 1, and if it is 1, the process proceeds to step S112 and the EL15 is turned off. After turning off the EL 15, the camera EL lighting flag is set to 0 in step S113, and the process returns to the main program.

When it is determined in step S109 that the previous electronic flash device EL lighting flag is not 0, that is, when the EL 25 of the electronic flash device 20 is lighting, the process proceeds to step S111. If it is determined in step S109 that the last electronic flash device EL lighting flag is 0 and in step S110 that the last two electronic flash device EL lighting flag is not 1, the process proceeds to step S111.

In step S111, it is determined whether or not the EL lighting timer that measures the lighting time of the EL15 has timed out. If timed out, the process proceeds to step S112, the EL15 is turned off, and the time must be over. If it returns to the main program. The same applies when the EL control subroutine is executed by the CPU 22 of the electronic flash device 20, and the camera 10 and the electronic flash device 20, EL 15 and EL 25, the camera EL lighting flag and the electronic flash device are described in the explanation of the above-mentioned flowchart. The EL lighting flags may be replaced with each other.

An example of flag change according to the embodiment is shown in FIGS. 4 and 5. FIG. 4 shows a case where the display illumination device is turned on by operating the operation member 11 of the camera. The operation member 11 is operated between the timings h and i, and the EL 15 starts lighting. The camera EL flag = 1 is transmitted to the electronic flash device by the communication at the timing i, and the electronic flash device EL lighting flag is also set to 1 by the communication at the timing j. By the way, the chattering or the like occurs in the operation member 11 of the camera between the timings i and j, and the processing in which the conventional camera EL flag is set to 0 at the timing j is performed two times before in the step S115 of FIG. ) Since the transmitted flag is determined to be 0, the camera EL flag is held at 1.

When the operating member 11 is operated between the timings jk as shown in FIG. 4, the condition of step S115 is no longer satisfied, so the processes of step S108 and subsequent steps are performed, and the extinguishing process of step S112 is performed. Is done. It can be seen that the turn-off was transmitted to the electronic flash device by the communication at the timing k, and the electronic flash device was turned off without any problem at the next timing l.

FIG. 5 shows a case where lighting is started by the electronic flash device, but it is assumed that the electronic flash device has not executed the processing of step 115 of the present invention. The electronic flash device may set the electronic flash device EL lighting flag to 1 at timing m and to 0 at timing n. Even in this case, the camera sets the camera EL lighting flag to 1 at the timing n, but does not set the camera EL lighting flag to 0 at the timing o. Therefore, it is only the electronic flash device EL lighting flag that changes at the timing o, and thereafter, both ELs enter a stable lighting state and do not blink. As described above, the present invention is effective even if it is implemented by either one of the communicating devices.

In the embodiment, the same lighting signal is transmitted in the next communication after the communication in which the lighting signal is transmitted. However, the same lighting signal is transmitted in the next communication after the lighting signal, that is, the camera EL lighting flag changes from 1 to 0. Blinking can be prevented even if 0 is forced to be sent to.

[0030]

[Effect of device]

 As described above, even if multiple devices such as cameras and accessories have lighting, all the devices can be turned on and off by operating only one operating member, and they can be turned on for each communication between the devices. The blinking state caused by repeating the declaration and the turn-off declaration is prevented.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a block diagram of the present invention

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a display illumination control subroutine of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing changes in a camera EL lighting flag and an electronic flash device EL lighting flag according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a timing chart showing changes in a camera EL lighting flag and an electronic flash device EL lighting flag according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a timing chart showing changes in a camera EL lighting flag and an electronic flash device EL lighting flag under conventional control.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 camera 11,21 operation member 12,22 CPU 13,23 communication circuit 14,24 EL drive circuit 15,25 EL 16,26 display device 20 electronic flash device 100,200 illumination means 101,201 operation member 102,202 communication means 103, 203 control means

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Shingi Hagita 1-6-3 Nishioi, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Inside Nikon Oi Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Claims (2)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A display unit, a lighting unit that is turned on to illuminate a display screen of the display unit, an operation member that is operated to turn on and off the lighting unit, a communication unit, and the operation member. Is turned on, or when a lighting signal is received from the outside via the communication means, the lighting means is turned on, and the operation member is turned off, or via the communication means. A control means for turning off the lighting means when an extinguishing signal is received from the outside, wherein the control means repeatedly outputs the signal to the outside via the communication means, and outputs the signal to the outside via the communication means When the signal is different between the last time and the last time, the same signal as the previous time is transmitted by the control means at the next communication regardless of the signal received via the operation member and the communication means. A camera capable of illuminating the display screen, which is characterized by sending the issue. 2. A display unit, a lighting unit that is turned on to illuminate a display screen of the display unit, an operation member that is operated to turn on and off the lighting unit, a communication unit, and the operation member. Is turned on, or when a lighting signal is received from the outside via the communication means, the lighting means is turned on, and the operation member is turned off, or via the communication means. A control means for turning off the lighting means when an extinguishing signal is received from the outside, wherein the control means repeatedly outputs the signal to the outside via the communication means, and outputs the signal to the outside via the communication means When the signal is different between the last time and the last time, the same signal as the previous time is transmitted by the control means at the next communication regardless of the signal received via the operation member and the communication means. An accessory device capable of illuminating the display screen, which is characterized by sending a number.