Video camera apparatus with grip axis and viewfinder optical axis in parallel relation

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a viewfinder interlinked-type camera grip which can effect shooting safely with a natural posture by providing a camera grip interlinked with a viewfinder on a camera body such as to be rotatable, thereby overcoming the above-described drawbacks of the prior art.
To this end, according to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a video camera apparatus comprising: a viewfinder; a camera grip integrally interlinked with the viewfinder; and installing means for installing the camera grip on a camera body such as to be rotatable, wherein the installing means is arranged to be capable of retaining the camera grip at a desired position within a rotating range with respect to the camera body.
Consequently, since the viewfinder and the camera grip are rotated in interlinking manner and the camera grip is set to a desired angle, it is possible to adopt a natural shooting posture not only in the normal angle shooting but also in the low- and high- angle shooting.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a video camera apparatus which is capable of speedily coping with a shooting posture having a high frequency of use and of further improving the operating efficiency.
To this end, according to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a video camera apparatus in which a casing having a viewfinder and a grip is installed rotatably on a camera body, the video camera apparatus comprising: an urging member for urging the casing and the camera body in the direction of being brought into pressure contact with each other via a frictional member; and a positioning mechanism arranged such that an urging force by the urging member is alleviated when the casing and the camera body assume a predetermined rotational phase with respect to each other.
Consequently, the camera body and the grip casing can be made to click at rotating positions corresponding to shooting positions whose frequency of usage is high