Patent ID: 8471952

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: an imaging lens; an image pickup element including pixels of a first group and pixels of a second group for photoelectric conversion arranged in matrix, the pixels of the second group including pixels for phase difference detection, wherein an incident direction of a light flux which passes through an emission pupil of the imaging lens and enters the pixels of the first group is not restricted, and an incident direction of a light flux which passes through the emission pupil of the imaging lens and enters the pixels of the second group is restricted, the image pickup element configured to be capable of independently reading out first image signals and second image signals from the pixels of the first group and the pixels of the second group, respectively; a defocus amount calculation device configured to read out the second image signals from the image pickup elements and to calculate an amount of defocus of the imaging lens based on image signals read out from the pixels for phase difference detection among the second image signals; a focus control device configured to perform a focus adjustment by moving the imaging lens so as to make the amount of defocus calculated by the defocus amount calculation device 0; an image processing device configured to read out the first image signals and the second image signals from the image pickup element after the focus adjustment performed by the focus control device; and a recording device configured to record the image generated by the image processing device in a recording medium.