Patent ID: 7733413

Claim:
An imaging apparatus comprising: an image pickup device that converts light from a subject to image data; a drive section that drives the image pickup device; an operable shutter button that is capable of being halfway pressed and fully pressed; a first determination section that determines whether the shutter button is pressed halfway; a second determination section that determines whether the shutter button is fully pressed at once; an auto-focus section that changes a length of an optical path step by step, obtains an auto-focus evaluation value based on image data read from the image pickup device for each changed length of the optical path, and controls the length of the optical path to provide a highest auto-focus evaluation value among the obtained auto-focus evaluation values to perform an auto-focus operation on the subject; and a focus control section that controls the auto-focus section to perform the auto-focus operation while controlling the drive section so that the image data is read from the image pickup device at a predetermined frame rate suitable for displaying a through image, when the first determination section determines that the shutter button is pressed halfway, and that controls the auto-focus section to perform the auto-focus operation while controlling the drive section to drive the image pickup device in a high speed drive so that the image data is read from the image pickup device at a greater frame rate than the predetermined frame rate, when the second determination section determines that the shutter button is fully pressed at once.