Patent ID: 8179472

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup unit configured to selectively perform an image capturing operation in a normal image capturing mode in which an exposure image signal is output in a unit period and an image capturing operation in a combined image capturing mode in which a long-exposure image signal with a relatively long exposure time and a short-exposure image signal with a relatively short exposure time are output in the unit period; a signal processing unit configured to generate a combined image signal with a relatively wide dynamic range at least wider than that of the long-exposure image signal or that of the short-exposure image signal by combining the long-exposure image signal and the short-exposure image signal obtained in the image capturing operation in the combined image capturing mode by using the image pickup unit; a detection unit configured to generate a luminance integrated value of the combined image signal; and a control unit configured to perform exposure correction control using the luminance integrated value, the control unit initializes a correction value for use in the exposure correction control when the image pickup unit switches from an image capturing operation state in the normal image capturing mode to an image capturing operation state in the combined image capturing mode and causes the image pickup unit to switch from the image capturing operation state in the combined image capturing mode to the image capturing operation state in the normal image capturing mode when a change in the luminance integrated value obtained by the detection unit is greater than or equal to a predetermined value.