Patent ID: 8319864

Claim:
An imaging apparatus, comprising: an image sensor having a light receiving surface with a plurality of pixels and a color separation filter of a plurality of colors on a front side of each of the pixels, which receives light incident from a photographic subject via an optical system on the light receiving surface via the color separation filter and outputs as a pixel output of each of the pixels and images an image of the photographic subject; a pixel output judging processor which judges if the pixel output of each of the pixels converted to data reaches a saturation level or not; a pixel output compensation processor, in a case where a pixel output of a pixel on which a specific color filter is placed is judged to reach the saturation level by the pixel output judging processor, based on a pixel output of a pixel on which a color filter other than the specific color filter is placed in the vicinity of the pixel on which the specific color filter is placed, which performs a compensating operation to compensate the pixel output of the pixel on which the specific color filter is placed which reaches the saturation level; a bit compression convertor which performs a bit compression such that pixel output data from the pixel output compensation processor, which is once converted from a first bit number to a second bit number larger than the first bit number, is converted again to the first bit number; a histogram producer which produces a brightness histogram of the image of the photographic subject based on the pixel output of each of the pixels; and a calculator which calculates a ratio of the number of pixels of a maximum brightness area of areas where a brightness distribution is plurally divided to the number of entire pixels from the brightness histogram produced by the histogram producer, wherein the bit compression convertor performs the bit compression based on a bit compression characteristic set on the basis of the ratio of the number of pixels of the maximum brightness area calculated by the calculator, and in a case where the pixel output of the pixel on which the specific color filter is placed reaches the saturation level and the pixel output of the pixel on which the color filter other than the specific color filter is placed in the vicinity of the pixel on which the specific color filter is placed is close to the saturation level, the bit compression convertor performs the bit compression with a smaller compression rate for the bit compression on data based on a pixel output which is equal to or more than the saturation level, compared to a case where the pixel output of the pixel on which the specific color filter is placed reaches the saturation level and the pixel output of the pixel on which the color filter other than the specific color filter is placed in the vicinity of the pixel on which the specific color filter is placed is approximately ½ of the saturation level.