Patent ID: 7369172

Claim:
A vehicular camera for detecting desired imaging objects by shooting surroundings of a vehicle, comprising: a lens for forming an image of light coming from the outside on an image pickup device; the image pickup device for performing photoelectric conversion on the image formed thereon; an image processing unit for producing a video signal by processing a signal produced by the image pickup device; and an optical filter for causing a difference between luminance of each of n kinds of objects to be detected and luminance of a background, the optical filter having a spectral transmittance characteristic F(λ) that satisfies ∫ F 1 (λ) F (λ) dλ>∫F m (λ) F (λ) dλ ∫ F 2 (λ) F (λ) dλ>∫F m (λ) F (λ) dλ ∫ F n (λ) F (λ) dλ>∫F m (λ) F (λ) dλ where λ is wavelength of light, F 1 (λ), F 2 (λ), . . . , F n (λ) are spectral characteristics of the n kinds of objects to be detected, respectively, and F m (λ) is a spectral characteristic of a background.