Patent ID: 8264592

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup device that includes a plurality of image pickup pixels configured to receive light that has passed an exit pupil of an image pickup lens and to generate an image of an object, and a plurality of focus detection pixels each configured to receive light that has passed a part of an area of the exit pupil of the image pickup lens in a focus detection region; a first focus detector configured to detect a focus by detecting a shift amount between a pair of images of the object formed by the plurality of focus detection pixels; a second focus detector configured to detect a focus by detecting a peak position of a contrast value of an image of the object formed by the plurality of image pickup pixels; and a controller configured to control the second focus detector to continue to detect the focus when the shift amount detected by the first focus detector is larger than a threshold even when the second focus detector detects a peak position of the contrast value, and to move the image pickup lens to a lens position corresponding to a peak position of the contrast value detected by the second focus detector when the shift amount is the threshold or smaller.