Patent ID: 7710485

Claim:
A solid-state image pickup apparatus comprising: an image sensor comprising, a plurality of photosensitive portions for photoelectrically converting incident light to signal charge, said photosensitive portions being arranged in a row and a column direction to form an imaging surface corresponding to a plurality of pixels, a plurality of vertical transfer paths for vertically transferring the signal charge obtained in the plurality of pixels, on a one-row basis, a horizontal transfer path for horizontally transferring the signal charge transferred from said vertical transfer paths, and an output circuit for converting the signal charge transferred from said horizontal transfer path to an image electrical signal representing an image and outputting the image electrical signal; and a signal processor for receiving the image electrical signal from said image sensor and processing the image electrical signal, wherein said horizontal transfer path is provided in single or more, said output circuit being provided in plural, and each of said output circuits being provided at different one end of said horizontal transfer path, said signal processor comprising an output scheme determiner for defining, depending on a shooting condition, an output scheme associated with a number of operative ones of said plurality of output circuits and a drive frequency of said horizontal transfer path, said image sensor controlling, depending on the drive frequency, a horizontal transfer rate of the signal charge in said horizontal transfer path, and controlling, depending on the number of operative circuits, said plurality of vertical transfer paths, said horizontal transfer path, and said plurality of output circuits, in such a manner as to operate one or ones of said plurality of output circuits corresponding to the number of operative circuits, drive said plurality of vertical transfer paths and said horizontal transfer path to transfer the signal charge only to said operating output circuit or circuits, and allow said operating output circuit or circuits to produce and output the image electrical signal of a same number as the number of operative circuits, further wherein said output scheme determiner selects either one of a first output scheme and a second output scheme, the first output scheme having a first number of operative circuits and a first drive frequency at which said image sensor carries out a normal shooting operation, and the second output scheme having a second number of operative circuits higher than the first number of operative circuits and a second drive frequency lower than the first drive frequency, furthermore wherein one of a plurality of optical-sensitivity modes each associated with a respective International Standards Organization (ISO) sensitivity is set, and said apparatus carries out shooting in the one sensitivity mode set, and said output scheme determiner defines the output scheme depending on the one sensitivity set as the shooting condition.