A shutter and aperture device of a miniature digital camera module is coupled to a moveable lens group and is controlled by a horological type stepper motor from a fixed position from outside the moveable lens group. The coupling element between the stepper motor and the shutter device is a mechanical drive apparatus that allows movement of the shutter device along an optical axis before, during and after adjustment of the shutter setting by the stepper motor. The stepper motor is driven with CMOS I/O allowing integration of all control circuitry, image processing circuitry and a pixel photo imager array into a system-on-chip integrated circuit chip.