Patent ID: 7206020

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: at least one solid state image pickup device for converting an incident light into a video signal, said solid state image pickup device constructed by a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements including a defect pixel which generates a white defect signal; a video signal processing unit, coupled to said solid state image pickup device, for processing said video signal; a white defect detection unit, coupled to said solid state image pickup device, for detecting said white defect signal from said video signal and generating position information of said defect pixel; and a white defect correction unit, coupled with said solid state image pickup device, through which said video signal is supplied to said video signal processing unit, for correcting said white defect signal, wherein said white defect correction unit comprising: an image pattern detection unit for detecting an image pattern in a predetermined pixel region which comprises a plurality of pixels including said defect pixel, an interpolation signal generation unit for generating an interpolation signal based on said image pattern, and a substituting unit, coupled with said interpolation signal generation unit, for substituting said white defect signal to said interpolation signal, wherein when a signal level of said white defect signal is higher than a predetermined value, an activating unit for activating said white defect correction unit with respect to each of outputs of a predetermined number of pixels formed of the defect pixel and one or more pixels preceding and subsequent to said defect pixel, wherein for each of pixels ranging from a first pixel to a second last pixel in the predetermined number of pixels, said white defect correction unit generates a signal by adding an interpolation signal generated for the pixel and a video signal of a pixel immediately preceding the pixel with predetermined ratios, and substitutes the generated signal for a video signal of the pixel, and wherein for a last pixel in the predetermined number of pixels, said white defect correction unit generates a signal by adding an interpolation signal generated for the last pixel and a video signal of a pixel immediately following the last pixel with predetermined ratios, and substitutes the generated signal for a video signal of the last pixel.