Patent ID: 7907175

Claim:
A tracking image pickup device comprising: an image pickup section that has a predetermined optical system and acquires an image pickup signal through the optical system; a tracking target-detecting section that detects a tracking target from the image pickup signal acquired by said image pickup section; a drive section that has a fine movement part formed by a part of the optical system, and a rough movement part, so as to turn the tracking image pickup device in a panning or tilting direction; a control section that drivingly controls the drive section such that an amount of deviation between the tracking target and an image pickup direction of the tracking image pickup device is reduced; and an image pickup direction-computing section that determines the image pickup direction of the tracking image pickup device based on a fine-rotational axis position as a position of a rotational axis of said fine movement part, a rough-rotational axis position as a position of a rotational axis of said rough movement part, and a lens principal point position or an entrance pupil position of the predetermined optical system; wherein said rough movement part is controlled with a lower frequency response characteristic than said fine movement part is, while said fine movement part is controlled with a higher frequency response characteristic than said rough movement part is.