Patent ID: 8854534

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a contrast calculating unit configured to calculate a contrast for each position in an image picked up through an image pickup lens; a cutback processing unit configured to cause data having a greater value than a cutback threshold to pass from a data group of the contrast calculated by the contrast calculating unit, thereby executing a cutback processing for the contrast; a contrast evaluation value calculating unit configured to calculate a contrast evaluation value to be an evaluation index of a clearness of the image via an integration of the contrast passing through the cutback processing unit; and a focus control unit configured to control a focus operation of the image pickup lens depending on the contrast evaluation value, wherein the focus control unit successively drives the image pickup lens in such a direction that the contrast evaluation value is increased in a moving direction of the image pickup lens for the focus operation, thereby retrieving a focusing point in which the contrast evaluation value is maximized, and the focus control unit retrieves the focusing point by executing a driving operation of the image pickup lens depending on the contrast evaluation value calculated in the case in which the cutback threshold is set to be a second value that is smaller than a first value, as a verification of retrieving the focusing point in the case in which the cutback threshold is set to be the first value, and then, retrieves the focusing point by executing a driving operation of the image pickup lens depending on the contrast evaluation value calculated in the case in which the cutback threshold is changed from the second value to the first value.