Patent ID: 9270948
Filing Date: 2016-02-23
CPC Classification: G02B,G03B,H04N

Claim Text:
1. An image pickup apparatus comprising: a lens optical system having a plurality of regions including six regions having such optical characteristics that focal characteristics are made different from one another; an image pickup device having a plurality of pixels on which light beams having passed through the lens optical system are incident; and an arrayed optical device arranged between the lens optical system and the image pickup device for making light beams having passed through the six regions incident respectively on different pixels on the image pickup device, wherein the plurality of pixels include a plurality of pixels belonging to first to sixth pixel groups, light beams having passed through the six regions are incident on the first to sixth pixel groups, respectively, the image pickup apparatus further comprising a signal processing section, the signal processing section calculates a distance to an object using brightness information of a plurality of pixels obtained from a plurality of pixel groups of the first to sixth pixel groups, and the signal processing section calculates the distance to the object based on degrees of sharpness of any two of six images formed by light beams having been incident on the six regions.