Patent ID: 7489356

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus, comprising: a solid-state image pickup device; and a transfer signal controller, the solid-state image pickup device comprising: a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements arranged two-dimensionally; a plurality of vertical transfer paths disposed in respective vertical lines of the plurality of photoelectric conversion elements and configured to vertically transfer charges read out from the respective photoelectric conversion elements; a single horizontal transfer path configured to horizontally transfer the charges transferred from each of the vertical transfer paths; and two charge/voltage converters provided in both ends of the horizontal transfer path and configured to convert the charges into image pickup signals, the transfer signal controller being configured to control directions to which the charges are transferred in the horizontal transfer path of the solid-state image pickup device, wherein the image pickup apparatus is configured to drive the solid-state image pickup device such that the image pickup signals are outputted from the two charge/voltage converters when a monitoring operation is carried out, and wherein the image pickup apparatus is configured to drive the solid-state image pickup device such that the image pickup signals are outputted from one of the two charge/voltage converters when obtaining the image pickup signals for recording of a still image.