Patent ID: 8547420

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: a photographing section that can photograph a subject from a plurality of viewpoints with parallax, and can photograph a 2D moving image of the subject obtained by photographing from at least one of the viewpoints and a 3D image of the subject obtained by photographing from the plurality of the viewpoints; a recording section that records the 2D moving image and the 3D image; a subject situation determination section that determines a timing suitable for photographing the 3D image while photographing the 2D moving image; and a photographing control section that controls the photographing section so as to photograph the 3D image when the subject situation determination section determines that the timing is suitable for photographing the 3D image, wherein the subject situation determination section calculates a distance between the subject and the photographing section from a focusing length of the photographing section, and determines the timing suitable for photographing the 3D image when the distance between the subject and the photographing section is less than a predetermined distance.