Patent ID: 7375755

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for informing a user of the posture thereof comprising: an image pickup element; a posture detecting device configured to detect posture information of the image pickup element; an operation member; a control circuit configured to execute an image taking process for storing the image data obtained from an output of the image pickup element and the posture information detected by the posture detecting device on a recording medium, in accordance with an operation of the operation member; and a display device configured to display an image representing a visual facsimile of said image processing apparatus whose posture reflects the posture of said image processing apparatus, the visual facsimile including visually distinguishable representations of the top and bottom of said image processing apparatus the posture of said image processing apparatus and to rotate the image representing the posture of said image processing apparatus based on the image data stored in the recording medium, using the posture information stored in the recording medium, and display the thus rotated image, wherein the posture information indicates angles which are set stepwise and the image to be displayed by said display device is allowed to be rotated based on any of the angles, and wherein said display device is configured to continuously display an image based on the output of the image pickup element and the image representing the posture of said image processing apparatus based on the posture information detected by said posture detecting device, before the execution of the image taking process, in accordance with an operation of said operation member.