Patent ID: 7176975

Claim:
An image pick-up apparatus comprising: an image pick-up unit configured to pick up an object image; an image pick-up instructing unit configured to instruct the image pick-up unit to pick up the image; an exposure control unit configured to control an exposure amount of the image picked up by the image pick-up unit; a focus adjusting unit configured to adjust focus of the image picked up by the image pick-up unit by shifting a focusing lens; a control unit configured to control the image pick-up unit, the exposure control unit, and the focus adjusting unit in accordance with one instruction by the image pick-up instructing unit to pick up the object image two times to obtain an in-focus image with an exposure amount for correctly exposing the image and an out-of-focus image with an overexposure, wherein at least one of the in-focus image and the out-of-focus image is obtained by shifting the focusing lens; and a synthesizing unit configured to generate a synthesized image by synthesizing the out-of-focus image with the in-focus image.