Abstract: In an image pickup apparatus, a level of an output signal from an image pickup device is detected. A first quantity of exposure of the image pickup device is determined such that a maximum value of the output signal from the image pickup device does not exceed a saturation level. And a first image signal picked up by the image pickup device with the first quantity of exposure is synthesized with at least one second image signal picked up with a second quantity of exposure which is larger than the first quantity of exposure.

Abstract: An image pickup apparatus including a solid-state image pickup device for photoelectrically converting incident light from an object into an electrical signal and outputting the electrical signal, an electronic flash tube for irradiating light onto the object, and a system controller for controlling the light emission timing of the electronic flash tube. The electronic flash tube is caused to emit light in the vertical blanking period of the solid-state image pickup device. The invention is to also provide an image pickup apparatus having a solid-state image pickup device capable of performing photoelectric conversion and reading out the charges accumulated for an arbitrary time, a field memory for storing image data obtained by performing predetermined processing for the readout signal, an image synthesizing unit for synthesizing an immediately preceding field image and a new image from the image pickup device, and an electronic flash unit.

Abstract: An image pickup apparatus according to the present invention structured to synthesize a plurality of images having different quantities of exposure to enlarge the image pickup dynamic range is intended to prevent rise of the noise level of the connection point of the images. A maximum value detection circuit controls the quantity of exposure of an image pickup device to be a first quantity of exposure and a second quantity of exposure smaller than the first quantity of exposure and optimizes the second quantity of exposure in accordance with the second quantity of exposure. A first image signal corresponding to the first quantity of exposure and a second image signal corresponding to the thus-optimized second quantity of exposure are synthesized by a synthesizing circuit.

Abstract: In an image pickup apparatus, a level of an output signal from an image pickup device is detected. A first quantity of exposure of the image pickup device is determined such that a maximum value of the output signal from the image pickup device does not exceed a saturation level. And a first image signal picked up by the image pickup device with the first quantity of exposure is synthesized with at least one second image signal picked up with a second quantity of exposure which is larger than the first quantity of exposure.

Abstract: An electronic imaging apparatus capable of obtaining high image quality that serves for printed photographs, e.g. DTP and posters. The apparatus has an image-forming optical system (1), a solid-state image pickup device (3), a signal processing device (4), and a sensor driving circuit (5). The image-forming optical system (1) includes a diffraction lens for correcting chromatic aberrations. The signal processing device (4) includes an image processing device for removing flare components due to unwanted orders of diffracted light produced by a diffraction surface. The image processing device obtains a flare component by performing the convolution of the point image energy intensity distribution of each unwanted order of diffracted light with the energy intensity distribution of an image signal, and subtracts the flare component from the image signal to obtain a corrected image signal.