Patent ID: 7551209

Claim:
An imaging apparatus, comprising: object distance detecting means for detecting distance to an object; zoom value detecting means for detecting a zoom value of an optical system; object brightness detection means for detecting brightness of the object; white balance controlling means for detecting an achromatic portion of the object based on a chrominance signal generated from an output signal of an imaging element through the optical system, and controlling gain of the chrominance signal in accordance with a shift amount of white balance detected from the achromatic portion, wherein white balance is controlled such that: while object distance detection information is fixed, if zoom value information changes when object brightness information is a first value, white balance adjustment is made or not made according to a first threshold value; and if the zoom value information changes, when the object brightness information is a second value different from the first value, white value adjustment is made or not made according to a second threshold value different from the first threshold value.