Patent ID: 7916209

Claim:
An image capturing apparatus comprising: an image capturing processing unit configured to selectively perform a normal image capturing process in a normal image capturing mode to obtain a single exposure image signal and to generate captured image data by performing signal processing upon the single exposure image signal, and a combined image capturing process in a combined image capturing mode to obtain a long-exposure image signal by exposure for a long period and a short-exposure image signal by exposure for a short period and to generate captured image data by performing signal processing including signal combination processing upon the long-exposure image signal and the short-exposure image signal, the long exposure period being longer than the short exposure period; a detection unit configured to perform one of center-weighted light metering, evaluative light metering, and averaging light metering on the captured image data generated by the image capturing processing unit; and a control unit configured to cause the detection unit to perform one of center-weighted light metering and evaluative light metering when the image capturing processing unit is in the normal image capturing mode and to perform averaging light metering when the image capturing processing unit is in the combined image capturing mode.