Patent ID: 8023004

Claim:
An imaging apparatus comprising: an imaging unit capable of selectively executing an imaging operation in a normal imaging mode that outputs a normal exposure image signal as one exposure image signal in a unit period and an imaging operation in a combined imaging mode that outputs, in the unit period, a long-time-exposure image signal corresponding to a relatively long exposure time and a short-time-exposure image signal corresponding to a relatively short exposure time; a pre-processing unit that performs gain processing on the normal exposure image signal, or the long-time-exposure image signal and the short-time-exposure image signal, wherein the pre-processing unit includes a programmable gain amplifier; a signal processing unit that, by combining the long-time-exposure image signal and short-time-exposure image signal subjected to the gain processing, generates a combined image signal having a dynamic range relatively wider than at least one of dynamic ranges of the long-time-exposure image signal and the short-time-exposure image signal; and a control unit that performs control in which, by switching a reference gain setting value for the programmable gain amplifier in the gain processing in the pre-processing unit in accordance with one of the normal imaging mode and the combined imaging mode, when the imaging unit is in the combined imaging mode, the reference gain setting value is set to be greater than the reference gain setting value set when the imaging unit is in the normal imaging mode.