Patent ID: 7298411

Claim:
A digital camera comprising: an imaging section imaging, at a predetermined imaging position, light from a subject; an image pickup section receiving, at a predetermined light-receiving surface, light from the subject which is incident via the imaging section, and generating image information for a still-image photograph of the subject on the basis of an amount of received light; a photographing controlling section acquiring the image information for the still-image photograph generated by the image pickup section, and carrying out control of execution of still-image photographing processing; a moving section moving at least one of the imaging section and the image pickup section in a direction of an optical axis of light incident via the imaging section; a standby-time focus controlling section which, at a time of standby before execution of the still-image photographing processing by the photographing controlling section, controls the moving section so as to continuously set a focused state in which the imaging position by the imaging section and a position of the light-receiving surface of the image pickup section coincide; a focus instructing section instructing setting of the focused state, at a time of execution of the still-image photographing processing by the photographing controlling section; and a photographing-time focus controlling section which, at a point in time when an instruction is given by the focus instructing section, interrupts focus control by the standby-time focus controlling section, and on the basis of an operational state of the focus control at a point in time of interruption, controls the moving section in order to minimize a processing time required for setting of the focused state, wherein the control by the photographing-time focus controlling section terminates in response to the setting of the focused state, and the still image photographing processing is executed after termination of the control by the photographing-time focus controlling section.