Patent ID: 6995801

Claim:
A solid-state imaging apparatus, comprising: a solid-state image sensor for accumulating information charges corresponding to an image of an object and generating an image signal in response to the information charges; a driver, connected to the image sensor, for driving the image sensor in accordance with a timing signal so that the information charges are accumulated in a predetermined exposure period, and for outputting the image signal from the image sensor; a first exposure information generating circuit for determining whether a level of the image signal output from the image sensor is within a predetermined range and producing first exposure information which is incremented or decremented based in units of predetermined steps on the determination results; a second exposure information generating circuit for calculating second exposure information using the image signal output from the image sensor and a predetermined optimum value; a selection circuit, connected to the first and second exposure information generating circuit s, for selecting the first exposure information when the level of the image signal is outside of the predetermined range and selecting the second exposure information when the level of the image signal is within the predetermined range; and a timing control circuit, connected to the driver, for receiving the exposure information selected by the selection circuit and generating a new timing signal in accordance with the selected exposure information, wherein the new timing signal defines a new exposure period.