Patent ID: 8264559

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus for synthetically generating a first image, or a whole image of an entire object of shooting, the apparatus comprising: an image pickup section for sequentially changing an image pickup direction and picking up images of parts of the object of shooting to be imaged; a reading section for reading second images, each having a predetermined width and constituting a part of at least one of the images picked up on an imaging plane by the image pickup section; a defining section for defining a reading range of each second image to be read by the reading section; a relative position identifying section for identifying the relative position of each second image relative to the first image; and a synthesizing section for generating the first image by sequentially and synthetically combining the second images read out by the reading section, wherein: the defining section is adapted to: determine a first quantity of movement of each second image by referring to the relative position thereof as identified by the relative position identifying section and define the reading range of the second image to be read out next according to the first quantity of movement, and determine a center position of the reading range of each second image according to the magnitude relationship between the first quantity of movement and the reading range; and the image pickup section is adapted to: obtain information indicative of a completion of an image pickup operation; and generate an instruction to encode data associated with the synthesized first image, in response to the obtained information.