Patent ID: 6897893

Claim:
An image pickup device equipped with a light emitter which determines a light quantity of a second light emission by the light emitter based on an electric signal into which an image picked up with a first light emission by the light emitter is converted, comprising: an image pickup unit which picks up an image and converts the picked-up image into an electric signal; a memory adapted to store image data corresponding to the electric signal produced by the image pickup unit; a determining section which makes a determination of whether the electric signal produced by the image pickup unit has a proper brightness, in a case where the image is picked up by the image pickup unit with the first light emission by the light emitter; and a controller which controls the memory to store the image data corresponding to the electric signal used by the determining section for making the determination, and which inhibits the second light emission by the light emitter, only if a result of the determination of the determining section is “proper” with respect to the electric signal which is produced by the image pickup unit by converting the image picked up by the image pickup unit with the first light emission by the light emitter; wherein the light emitter is controlled by the controller to emit light in timing with an image pickup timing of the image pickup device.