Patent ID: 7432961

Claim:
An electronic camera comprising: an image pickup part for capturing an image of light passing through a photo-taking lens to generate color image data; an ambient light colorimetric part for measuring color of ambient light without passing through said photo-taking lens; a colorimetric calculation part for obtaining a colorimetric result from said ambient light colorimetric part, for calculating color gain that brings said colorimetric result near achromatic, and for storing said color gain; and a white balance adjustment part for carrying out white balance adjustment of said image data with the use of said color gain stored in said colorimetric calculation part; wherein said image pickup part, said ambient light colorimetric part, said colorimetric calculation part and said white balance adjustment part are disposed in a same housing, in which said colorimetric calculation part pre-stores respective correspondence relations between a colorimetric result of ambient light and an applicability of white balance adjustment carried out based on the colorimetric result, and when said colorimetric result from said ambient light colorimetric part turns out to be inadequate by referring to said correspondence relations said colorimetric calculation part carries out an abort of said white balance adjustment based on said ambient light and/or gives a warning which indicates that said ambient light is inadequate to said white balance adjustment.