Patent ID: 8723993

Claim:
An imaging apparatus comprising: an image pickup device comprising a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements arrayed in a horizontal direction and a vertical direction; a color filter that is provided above a plurality of pixels configured by the plurality of photoelectric conversion elements, the color filter having repeatedly disposed 6×6 pixel basic array patterns configured with a first array pattern and a second array pattern disposed symmetrically about a point, wherein the first array pattern is disposed on 3×3 pixels containing a portion of a Bayer array pattern disposed with a first filter corresponding to a first color that contributes most to obtaining a brightness signal placed on 2 pixels on one diagonal of a 2×2 pixel square array, and a second filter corresponding to a second color different from the first color and a third filter corresponding to a third color different from the first color and the second color respectively placed on 2 pixels of the other diagonal, and wherein the second array pattern has the same placement of the first filter as that in the first array pattern and has the placement of the second filter and the placement of the third filter swapped over to that of the first array pattern; a drive section that drives the image pickup device so as to read pixel data from the image pickup device only of pixels at a predetermined position so as to give the same pattern as the Bayer array pattern; and a generating section that, based on the pixel data of the Bayer array pattern output from the image pickup device, for each pixel generates pixel data for each color for each of the pixels by interpolating pixel data for colors other than the corresponding color from pixel data of peripheral pixels.