Patent ID: 7545412

Claim:
An image-sensing apparatus comprising: a solid-state image sensor including: a plurality of pixels that perform photoelectric conversion so as to generate output signals that vary with a first characteristic in a first region such that the output signals vary linearly with respect to an amount of incident light and with a second characteristic in a second region such that the output signals vary logarithmically with respect to the amount of incident light; and a plurality of types of color filters provided in vicinity of the pixels; and a white balance circuit that performs white balance processing by performing, on at least one of different types of chrominance signals outputted as corresponding to the different types of color filters from the solid-state image sensor, different calculation operations fit respectively for the first and second characteristics in the first and second regions so as to thereby generate new output data, wherein the white balance circuit performs the white balance processing by performing the different calculation operations in at least three brightness regions, namely the first region in which all types of chrominance signals represent the first characteristic, the second region in which all types of chrominance signals represent the second characteristic, and a third region in which at least one of the different types of chrominance signals represents the first characteristic and at least one of the different types of chrominance signals represents the second characteristic.