Patent ID: 6970193

Claim:
An image pick up apparatus comprising: an image pick up device; correction reference signal generation means for generating a correction reference signal from output signals of a vertical optical black pixel portion of the image pickup device, for correcting effective image signals outputted as signal of an effective pixel portion of said image pickup device; image signal correction means for subtracting said correction reference signal from said effective image signals; and image pickup device drive means having a plurality of drive modes for driving said image pickup device to read pixel charge as an output signal; wherein said correction reference signal generation means for performing different types of correction reference signal generation processing in generating the reference signal, corresponding to the plurality of drive modes of said image pickup device drive means, and wherein said correction reference signal generation means referring to address information relating to defective pixels in the vertical optical black pixel portion of the image pickup device and using only non-defective pixels in the vertical optical black pixel portion for generating said correction reference signal.