Patent ID: 7030916

Claim:
A color image pickup apparatus comprising an optical image pickup system and a signal processing system for processing a signal supplied from said optical image pickup system, wherein: said optical image pickup system comprises: a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements regularly disposed on a two-dimensional plane; a plurality of color filters each disposed on each of said photoelectric conversion elements, said color filters including first and second color filter groups, the first color filter group including visual light color filters of a plurality of colors to be used for obtaining digital color image signals, and the second color filter group including a long wavelength red color filter and at least one of the visual light color filters, the long red color filter having a transmission factor only in a wavelength range of substantially 640 nm or longer and being used for white color balance; an infrared cut filter disposed on said color filters; and a taking lens, and said signal processing system comprises a control circuit including: a fluorescent lamp distinguishing circuit for distinguishing a fluorescent lamp from other illuminating light sources in accordance with a ratio of an output signal from the photoelectric conversion elements having the long red filter of the second color filter group to an output signal from the photoelectric conversion elements having the visual light color filter; and a first white balance control circuit for adjusting a white balance so as to match the illuminating light source distinguished by said fluorescent lamp distinguishing circuit.