Patent ID: 8467581

Claim:
An image capturing apparatus comprising: an image pickup unit configured to obtain an image; a face detecting unit configured to detect a face of a photographic subject included in the image; an attribute detecting unit configured to detect attribute information of the face; an evaluation unit configured to evaluate a degree of intimacy between a plurality of photographic subjects based on a plurality of items of attribute information detected by the attribute detecting unit from faces of the plurality of photographic subjects, wherein: the faces are detected by the face detecting unit, the degree of intimacy is a value that indicates a level of friendliness between the photographic subjects, the evaluation unit computes the value based on a comparison of the plurality of items of attribute information detected by the attribute detecting unit for the faces of the plurality of the photographic subjects, and the plurality of items of attribute information indicate one or more of: velocities of positions of the faces, angular velocities of positions of the faces, degrees of smiling of the faces, a distance between the faces, and inclinations of the faces; and a control unit configured to cause the image pickup unit to capture an image of the plurality of photographic subjects based on determining that the value computed by the evaluation unit exceeds a predetermined threshold value to determine whether to activate the image pickup unit by determining a shutter timing or a self timer for capturing the image.