Patent ID: 7057657

Claim:
A solid-state image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup section including: a color separating section including color filters assigned to three primary colors R (red), G (green) and B (blue) for separating colors of light incident from a desired scene, the color filters assigned to the color G being arranged in vertical stripes; a plurality of photosensitive cells arranged bidimensionally in one-to-one correspondence to said color filters each for transforming light output from a particular color filter to a corresponding signal charge; a plurality of vertical transfer paths, each one offset from each vertical column of said plurality of photosensitive cells, each comprising transfer elements arranged in a vertical direction for vertically transferring signal charges fed from adjoining ones of said plurality of photosensitive cells; a horizontal transfer path perpendicular to said plurality of vertical transfer paths and comprising transfer elements arranged in a horizontal direction for transferring the signal charges fed from said plurality of vertical transfer paths; a plurality of signal reading circuits, one for each one of said plurality of photosensitive cells, for shifting the signal charges from said plurality of photosensitive cells to said plurality of vertical transfer paths, offset from said plurality of photosensitive cells; and charge sweeping circuitry for sweeping out needless ones of the signal charges stored in said plurality of photosensitive cells; a mode selecting section for selecting, when an operation for reading the signal charges out of said image pickup section is represented by a mode, either one of an all pixel read mode for reading the signal charges from all of said plurality of photosensitive cells and a particular pixel read mode for reading only the signal charges representative of the color G; a drive signal generating section for feeding horizontal and vertical drive signals to said image pickup section, and providing said horizontal drive signals with a period shorter in said particular pixel read mode than in said all pixel read mode; and a controller for controlling said drive signal generating section in a particular manner in each of said all pixel read mode and said particular pixel read mode.