Patent ID: 7710458

Claim:
An image pick-up apparatus comprising: an image pick-up unit which shoots a subject to output a shot image; a luminance obtaining unit which obtains a subject luminance; a first exposure adjusting unit which makes the image pick-up unit execute a pixel addition process to raise luminance of the shot image, when the subject luminance obtained by the luminance obtaining unit is lower than a predetermined value; a second exposure adjusting unit which controls a shutter speed of the image pick-up unit in accordance with the subject luminance obtained by the luminance obtaining unit without making the image pick-up unit execute the pixel addition process, when the subject luminance obtained by the luminance obtaining unit is higher than a predetermined value; a mode selecting unit which selects one of a normal mode and a shake reducing mode as a shooting mode; and a third exposure adjusting unit which controls the shutter speed of the image pick-up unit in accordance with the subject luminance obtained by the luminance obtaining unit without making the image pick-up unit execute the pixel addition process, when the normal mode has been selected by the mode selecting unit; wherein the first exposure adjusting unit makes the image pick-up unit execute the pixel addition process to raise luminance of the shot image and to control the shutter speed of the image pick-up unit in accordance with the subject luminance obtained by the luminance obtaining unit, when the shake reducing mode has been selected by the mode selecting unit and the subject luminance is lower than the predetermined value; wherein the second exposure adjusting unit controls the shutter speed of the image pick-up unit in accordance with the subject luminance obtained by the luminance obtaining unit without making the image pick-up unit execute the pixel addition process, when the shake reducing mode has been selected by the mode selecting unit and the subject luminance is higher than the predetermined value; and wherein a control limit of a target shutter speed in a low speed range, controlled by the third exposure adjusting unit is set higher than a control limit of a target shutter speed in a low speed range, controlled by the first exposure adjusting unit.