The present invention relates to an electronic still video camera.
Flash light has been used for giving a proper amount of light to a low bright object to compensate the lack of photography light, or for applying exposure correction to an object with a bright background (back light) or low contrast to correct the contrast of objects.
In video cameras, on the other hand, it is known that variations of color temperature of irradiation light cause the color balance of an image to vary. In view of the fact, there have been provided video cameras carrying an automatic white balance device capable of automatically adjusting the color balance according to the color temperature of light source so that the color balance of image is not influenced by the variation of color temperature. However, such an automatic white balance device is complicated in circuit construction.
Several devices have been proposed to simplify the circuit construction for white balance. For example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 58-147721 discloses a device including a manual changer for manually changing from a daylight photography mode having a specific color temperature for daylight to a fluorescent/tungsten light photography mode having a specific color temperature for fluorescent/tungsten light and vice versa. In the device, also, when the completeness of charging of a flash is detected, the photography mode is forcibly set in the daylight photography mode from the fluorescent/tungsten light photography mode. In other words, in the device, the mode change is required to be carried out by hands. Also, even if the fluorescent/tungsten light photography mode is desired, when the flash charging is completed, the photography mode is forcibly changed to the daylight mode proper to flash light.
Further, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 63-59290 discloses a camera capable of detecting the color temperature and automatically executing white balance in which when the flash charging is completed, the specific color temperature of white balance is set in a fixed color temperature, e.g., daylight.
Moreover, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 58-149033 discloses a camera carrying a flash capable of firing a light having a desired color temperature.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional devices, the white balance device is changed according to the color temperature of an object. Consequently, it is necessary to provide changing means. Accordingly, it will be apparent that the conventional devices have limits in simplification.