Patent ID: 7609299

Claim:
A solid-state image sensing apparatus, comprising: a solid-state image sensing device outputting an electrical signal proportional to an intensity of incident light, the solid-state image sensing device configured for outputting a first signal converted linearly to the intensity of the incident light and a second signal converted natural- logarithmically to the intensity of the incident light, wherein a dynamic range of the second signal is adjusted to improve a contrast of the second signal and increase a compressed range of a luminance distribution of an imaged subject by natural-logarithmically conversion; a logarithmic/linear conversion circuit converting the second signal to a signal linearly proportional to the intensity of the incident light; a signal processing circuit supplied with the first signal and a signal from the logarithmic/linear conversion circuit, said signal processing circuit configured to perform white balance adjustment of the first signal or the signal from the logarithmic/linear conversion circuit to produce a linear signal; and a second signal processing circuit supplied with the linear signal from the signal processing circuit, the second signal processing circuit configured to perform matrix conversion, edge enhancement, color adjustment or inverse matrix conversion on the linear signal.