Patent ID: 8009924

Claim:
A method for recording image data captured by an image capturing apparatus, the method comprising: compressing original image data, having a plurality of pixels, in accordance with a lossless compression coding; determining whether an estimated size of compressed image data for an image is larger than the size of original image data for the image; and recording the original image data for the image into a memory without carrying out a compression process if the estimated size of the compressed image data for the image is larger than that of the original image data for the image, and recording the compressed image data for the image into the memory if the estimated size of the compressed image data for the image is not larger than that of the original image data for the image; dividing the original image data for the image into a plurality of blocks; extracting a part of the blocks to form a partial image data such that the extracted part of the blocks has a correlation relationship relative to the original image data for the image, performing a down sampling on the basis of the plurality of blocks; encoding the partial image data in accordance with the lossless compression coding to generate partially-compressed image data; and calculating the estimated size of the compressed image data for the image from the size of the partially-compressed image data on the basis of the correspondence relationship between the partial image data and the original image data for the image wherein the image capturing apparatus is capable of shooting continuously to obtain a series of captured images, the recording comprising recording the original image data or the compressed image data for the series of captured images based on a first-captured image of the series of captures images, and recording the remaining images in the same image data type used to record the first-captured image.