Image-capturing device

Abstract

An image-capturing device includes: a plurality of micro-lenses disposed in a two-dimensional pattern near a focal plane of an image forming optical system; an image sensor that includes a two-dimensional array of element groups each corresponding to one of the micro-lenses and made up with a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements which receive, via the micro-lenses light fluxes from a subject having passed through the photographic optical system and output image signals; and a synthesizing unit that combines the image signals output from the plurality of photoelectric conversion elements based upon information so as to generate synthetic image data in correspondence to a plurality of image forming areas present on a given image forming plane of the image forming optical system, the information specifying positions of the photoelectric conversion elements output image signals that are to be used for generating synthetic image data for each image forming area.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An image-capturing device, comprising:
 a plurality of micro-lenses;   a plurality of image-capturing pixels disposed at each of the plurality of micro-lenses; and   a processor that generates a synthetic image signal to generate a synthetic image on given focal plane of a subject based upon an output signal from the image-capturing pixel; wherein   each of the plurality of image-capturing pixels includes a cardinal point pixel that is one of the image-capturing pixels so as to generate the synthetic image signal corresponding to a single image pixel constituting the synthetic image;   the processor creates a synthetic affiliated table corresponding to each of the cardinal pixels, the synthetic affiliated table specifying positions of other image-capturing pixels that output signals to be combined with the output signal from each of the cardinal point pixels;   the processor creates the synthetic image signal based upon the output signal from each of the cardinal pixels and the output signal from the image-capturing pixel specified by the synthetic affiliated table; and   the processor creates the synthetic image signal in order matching with which each of the cardinal point pixels are disposed.   
     
     
         2 . The image-capturing device according to  claim 1 , wherein:
 the processor creates the synthetic image signal for each pixel cluster of the image capturing pixel corresponding to the micro-lens.