Patent ID: 8379118

Claim:
An imaging apparatus comprising: a plurality of pixels that convert subject light incident through a lens into electric charge and accumulate the electric charge, the plurality of pixels being disposed in an optically black area so blocked that no light is incident thereon and outputting optically black signals and in an effective pixel area unblocked so that light is incident thereon, the pixels disposed in the optically black area and the effective pixel area being arranged in a matrix in horizontal and vertical directions; an analog amplifier that applies predetermined gain to the electric charge read as an effective pixel signal from each of the pixels in the effective pixel area and outputs the resultant signal; a vertical line detector that calculates a correction value used to remove vertical line-shaped fixed pattern noise based on a vertical line level that is detected by changing a gain factor of the analog amplifier from a minimum to a maximum with the lens blocked, reading a pixel value of each pixel disposed in each vertical column arranged in an area formed of predetermined horizontal rows in the effective pixel area, calculating an arithmetic average of the read pixel values in each of the vertical columns, and subtracting each of the calculated arithmetic averages from a cramped black reference; a vertical line corrector that adds each of the correction values calculated by the vertical line detector to the corresponding effective pixel signal to remove the vertical line-shaped fixed pattern noise; and a multiplier that multiplies each of the effective pixel signals by the digital gain or multiplies each of the pixel signals having undergone the vertical line correction in the vertical line corrector so that the pixel signal contains no vertical line-shaped fixed pattern noise by the digital gain.