US Patent 7860386 Imaging apparatus, control method of imaging apparatus, and computer program

An imaging apparatus includes: a face detecting part configured to detect a face area from the input image inputted from an imaging apparatus; a subject distance computing part configured to compute a subject distance based on the size of a face detected in the face detecting part; a lens operating range computing part configured to estimate a focus position based on information about the subject distance computed in the subject distance computing part, and to set a focus lens operating range shorter than an entire operating range of a focus lens; and a focus control part configured to move the focus lens within the lens operating range set in the lens operating range computing part, and to decide a position at which the focus lens is set.