Patent ID: 8526804

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image sensing unit configured to sense an image of a subject formed by an optical imaging system including a zoom lens and output an image signal; a subject detection unit configured to detect the subject in an image screen based on the image signal output from the image sensing unit; a subject size acquisition unit configured to acquire a size of the subject detected by the subject detection unit; and a controller configured to perform an automatic zooming operation such that the zoom lens is driven to increase or decrease the size of the subject acquired by the subject size acquisition unit so that the size of the subject becomes equal to a reference size, wherein in a first case the controller resets the reference size to be equal to the size of the subject, and in a second case the controller resets the reference size to be equal to a mean value of subject sizes, wherein the first case is a case where the difference between the acquired size of the subject and the set reference size has increased beyond a predetermined threshold value and the position of the zoom lens has reached the wide angle end or the telephoto end, and wherein the second case is a case where the change in subject size is within the predetermined threshold value.