Patent ID: 8098306

Claim:
A phase adjustment device for adjusting a phase of a pulse used for imaging an analog imaging signal obtained by an imaging element comprising a plurality of pixels based on a digital imaging signal resulting from the conversion of the analog imaging signal into a digital value for each pixel, comprising: a brightness level detector for detecting a brightness level of the digital imaging signal for each of the plurality of pixels; a shading detector for setting a group of effective pixel regions distant from each other in a horizontal direction in the imaging element and then checking whether or not shadings are generated in the analog imaging signal based on a difference between the brightness levels of the group of effective pixel regions; and a timing adjuster for adjusting a phase of a peak sample pulse for detecting a peak level of the analog imaging signal, a phase of a reference sample pulse for detecting a signal level used as a reference in the correlated double sampling executed when the digital imaging signal is generated and a phase of a horizontal transfer pulse in the imaging element based on outputs of the brightness level detector and the shading detector, wherein: the brightness level is an average value of the signal levels of the digital imaging signals in the effective pixel regions, and the shading detector detects shading based on a difference between average values of brightness levels calculated for a plurality of image signals at each of two effective pixel regions distanced from each other in a horizontal direction.