Patent ID: 9036049
Filing Date: 2015-05-19
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image capturing apparatus comprising: an image sensor configured to convert a subject image into an image signal and output the image signal; an automatic correction unit configured to perform automatic correction processing including white balance correction processing on the image signal output from the image sensor; an image quality changing unit configured to perform image quality change processing on the image signal on which the automatic correction processing has been performed by the automatic correction unit; a first evaluation value detection unit configured to obtain a first evaluation value indicating a largest value of an R signal, a G signal, and a B signal of the image signal on which the image quality change processing has been performed by the image quality changing unit; a second evaluation value detection unit configured to detect a second evaluation value indicating a luminance of the image signal on which the image quality change processing has been performed by the image quality changing unit; and an exposure control unit configured to calculate a control evaluation value using a weighted average of the first evaluation value and the second evaluation value according to at least one of an amount of image quality changing effect due to the image quality change processing performed by the image quality changing unit on the image signal and a reliability of the automatic correction processing performed by the automatic correction unit on the image signal, and perform exposure control based on the control evaluation value, wherein the exposure control unit relatively increases a weight of the second evaluation value as the amount of image quality changing effect increases, and relatively increases a weight of the second evaluation value as the reliability decreases.