Patent ID: 7379620

Claim:
An image taking apparatus, comprising: an image-taking optical system that focuses object light from an object to form an image; a primary image pick-up section that receives a predetermined first part of the object light focused by the image-taking optical system to produce a primary image signal; a secondary image pick-up section that has a dynamic range wider than that of the primary image pick-up section and receives a second part of the object light excluding the first part to produce a secondary image signal; an image signal synthesizing section that synthesizes the primary image signal and the secondary image signal to produce a synthetic signal; a selector section that selects any one of the primary image signal and the synthetic signal; an image data producing section that produces image data representing an image of the object based on the primary image signal if the selector section selects the primary image signal or produces image data representing an image of the object based on the synthetic signal if the selector section selects the synthetic signal; and an information adding section that adds predetermined additional information to the image data if the selector section selects the synthetic signal.