Patent ID: 7330205

Claim:
A photographing method in which: employing a photographing element for sequentially transferring and reading out the charge stored on each light receiving pixel, a light-image of a subject is focused on the light-receiving zone of said photographing element, and said assembled light image is photoelectrically converted at and stored as a signal charge on each light-receiving pixel within said light-receiving zone, and said stored signal charge is converted to an image signal and read out, wherein said light-image is focused on a readout zone formed from less than the total number of pixels within the light-receiving zone, and the readout signal charge transferred to and stored on the light-receiving pixels contained in said light-receiving zone is read out as said image signal and the residual signal charge transferred to and stored on the light-receiving pixels in the non-readout zone outside the readout zone is read out as empty.