Patent ID: 8982236
Filing Date: 2015-03-17
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An imaging apparatus, comprising: an imaging optical system; an image pickup device forming a subject image through the imaging optical system and including a color filter array in which color filters including three primary colors are arranged on two-dimensionally arranged photoelectric conversion elements, the color filters of three primary colors are arranged on each line and which includes a plurality of lines that include lines having uneven ratios of the numbers of color filters of the three primary colors and lines having more even ratios of the numbers of color filters of the three primary colors than the uneven ratios; a thinning pattern determination device for determining one thinning pattern according to an imaging condition from among a plurality of thinning patterns for selecting lines to be thinning-read from among the plurality of lines; a white balance gain calculation device for calculating white balance gains on the basis of color signals on lines selected according to the thinning pattern determined by the thinning pattern determination device from among color signals that correspond to the color filters on each line and have been acquired by the image pickup device; a white balance correction device for performing white balance correction on each of the color signals acquired through the image pickup device on the basis of the white balance gains calculated by the white balance gain calculation device, and a calculation device for calculating offset values for respective color signals corresponding to color filters of the three primary colors, wherein the thinning pattern determination device determines one thinning pattern from among the plurality of thinning patterns on the basis of at least one of an f-number and an optical zoom magnification of the imaging optical system on imaging, the white balance gain calculation device calculates integrated mean values of respective color signals on lines to be used for calculating the white balance gains, subtracts offset values calculated for the respective color signals from the respective integrated mean values, and calculates the white balance gains on the basis of ratios of subtracted integrated mean values of the respective color signals, the image pickup device is an image pickup device that has an element structure of sharing an amplifier among a prescribed group of pixels, and the calculation device comprises: