Patent ID: 7058238

Claim:
An image pick-up apparatus for picking up a plurality of images being chronologically arranged along time-series to provide an image, comprising: a means for obtaining information about changes in gray level value between said plurality of images; and a means for determining a timing for selecting at least one of said plurality of picked up images, wherein said selection is based on a result from said obtained information, wherein said means for obtaining information compares said gray level value of pixels in an image of said plurality of images with similarly positioned pixels in another image of said plurality of images, and obtains a number of pixels whose said gray-level value has increased and a number of pixels whose said gray-level value has decreased, and wherein said means for determining a timing determines a timing for extracting one image from said plurality of images, when said number of pixels with increase in said gray-level value is less than the number of pixels with decrease in said gray level value.