Patent ID: 7386228

Claim:
An image taking apparatus including an image pick-up device for obtaining an image signal of a subject to be taken, comprising: a release operation portion for instructing the image pick-up device to start an image pick-up operation; an image taking mode selection switch for changing an image taking mode between a single shooting mode in which one still image is taken by operating the release operation portion and a continuous shooting mode in which a plurality of still images in time series are sequentially taken by operating the release operation portion; image taking condition determining means for determining an image taking condition of the image taking apparatus, including an exposure time in accordance with a condition of the subject to be image taken; split exposure means for executing the plurality of split exposure operations each of which split exposure time is shorter than the exposure time determined by the image taking condition determining means, so as to obtain a plurality of split-exposed images; image combining means for combining the plurality of split-exposed images obtained by the image pick-up device to form one of the still image or the plurality of the still images; and control means for controlling the image pick-up device, the split exposure means, and the image combining means in accordance with states of the release operation portion, the image taking mode selection switch, and the image taking condition determining means, wherein the control means causes the image combining means in a case that the image taking mode selection switch selects the continuous shooting mode, to combine the plurality of the split exposed images and provide the plurality of still images in time series which are sequentially obtained, and the control means controls the image combining means so that at least two images of the plurality of still images in time series formed by the image combining means includes a common split-exposed image.