Patent ID: 8106997

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: light receiving means for performing photoelectric conversion of a subject image introduced through an imaging lens, the light receiving means producing a first signal at a first timing and producing a second signal at a second timing later than the first timing; acquiring means for acquiring, based on the first signal, a first parameter for detecting a scene change and acquiring, based on the second signal, a second parameter for detecting a scene change; determining means for determining the presence or the absence of a scene change based on the first parameter and the second parameter; selecting means for selecting a focusing target AF area from among a plurality of AF areas; and focusing control means for executing focusing control by using focusing information with respect to the AF area selected by the selecting means, wherein when the determining means determines that the scene change is not present, the selecting means selects the AF area having been selected at the first timing, as the focusing target AF area, at the second timing continuously.