The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus equipped with multiple imaging modes, such as, imaging modes with preset aperture values and/or shutter speeds for particular scenes or imaging conditions and automatic imaging modes in which aperture values and/or shutter speeds are automatically set in accordance with surrounding brightness.
There are specific types of imaging apparatus, such as a video camera (camcorder) and a digital still camera, equipped with multiple imaging modes, thanks to advanced digital technology.
The imaging modes for such imaging apparatuses offer manual aperture-value and/or shutter-speed settings for particular scenes or imaging conditions, automatic aperture-value and/or shutter-speed settings in accordance with the surrounding brightness, etc.
Camera users can take higher quality images by selecting the best mode among those imaging modes.
Nevertheless, the imaging apparatuses with such multiple imaging modes require multiple procedures in selection of the best mode.
A technique to reduce the number of best-mode selection procedures is disclosed in Japanese Un-examined Patent Publication No. 2003-274268 (Document 1).
A new imaging mode introduced recently for imaging apparatuses is an automatic focusing mode in which a face is recognized when a target is a human, followed by automatic focusing onto the human face, disclosed in Japanese Un-examined Patent Publication No. 2006-145629 (Document 2). Such a human-face recognition technique would be provided for most imaging apparatuses.
In Document 1, the order of imaging modes in an imaging-mode menu window is switched based on the luminance and color of an image taken by an imaging apparatus and the time at the image is taken. Such mode-order switching allows a user to easily select an imaging mode, but requires specific procedures and signal processing circuitry for those conditions such as luminance and color of an image and an imaging time.