Digital camera and method for smoothing optical zoom effect and digital zoom effect

摘要

A new and improved digital camera (10) includes a zoom in switch(30) and a zoom out switch (32) to effect respective zoom in operations and zoom out operations in both an optical zoom mode of operation and a digital zoom mode of operation. A zoom control arrangement (33, 300) responds to the zoom in switch (30) to decrease a maximum optical zoom factor by one incremental setting when a current digital zoom factor is not equal to a maximum digital zoom factor of about Dn to facilitate developing a smooth transition to a next incremental optical digital zoom factor setting. The next incremental optical digital zoom factor setting is an individual optical digital zoom factor in a combined optical digital zoom factor range from a minimum optical digital zoom factor product of about Z1D1 to a maximum optical digital zoom factor product of about ZtDn. The zoom control arrangement (33,300) further responds to the zoom out switch (32) when the current digital zoom factor is not equal to a minimum digital zoom factor of about D1 to increase a minimum optical zoom factor of about Z1 by one incremental setting to facilitate developing a smooth transition to a next lower optical digital zoom factor setting. IMAGE