Patent ID: 7129980

Claim:
An image capturing apparatus, comprising: an imaging system including a lens and an imaging device, the lens forming an image of a subject on a light receiving surface of the imaging device, the imaging device converting the image of the subject to an electronic image signals; a display unit that displays an image in accordance with signals captured through the imaging device; a photometry device that determines a luminance of the subject; an automatic exposure control device that automatically adjusts exposure of the imaging system in accordance with the luminance of the subject determined by the photometry device; a gradation area dividing device that processes the electronic image signals read from the imaging device so as to divide, according to predetermined luminance thresholds, an image obtained by an image-capturing through the imaging system into areas of gradations coarser than gradations in the image capturing; a color-coding device that generates an image signal representing a gradation area divided image by applying the same color to at least one area in the same luminance range in the image obtained by the image-capturing so that the areas of gradations divided by the gradation area dividing device are visually distinguished, the display unit receiving the image signal generated by the color coding device and displaying the gradation area divided image; a luminance range designating device that designates one of the gradations corresponding to the subject in the gradation area divided image displayed on the display unit; a correcting device that corrects at least one of exposure control of the automatic exposure device and image data obtained with the exposure control so as to obtain a correct exposure for the one of the gradations designated by the luminance range designating device; a recording device that records the image data corrected by the correcting device; and a contour sampling device that samples contour of the subject from the image captured by the imaging device, wherein the image display unit displays the area of gradation color-coded by the color-coding device and the contour of the subject.