Patent ID: 8194140

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus which includes an image sensor for receiving light incident from a subject field through an optics to form an image with a plurality of pixels and electrically converting the image to a corresponding signal charge to thereby generate an image signal, comprising: a face detector for extracting face data of a person in the subject field on a basis of the image signal in a self-timer shooting; a face examination section for comparing the extracted face data detected by said face detector with face data of a person registered beforehand, and using a comparison result to examine whether or not the registered person is detected; a countdown section for executing, if said face examination section determines that the registered person is detected, countdown starting from a predetermined reference countdown period of time; and a shooting controller for controlling said image sensor to execute an automatic shooting when the countdown is completed by said countdown section, said apparatus further comprising: a face blur amount detector for using the extracted face data detected in said face detector to detect a blur amount of a face image of the registered person; and a registered person readiness determining section for determining on a basis of the face blur amount detected by said face blur amount detector whether or not the registered person is in readiness in a shooting area, said registered person readiness determining section obtaining an updating time on the basis of a time that elapsed until the registered person becomes in readiness in a shooting area, thereby using the updating time to define a renewed countdown period of time so as to determine the renewed countdown period of time as the reference countdown period of time.