Patent ID: 7310113

Claim:
A camera comprising: an imaging part that includes an imaging device; a variable gain amplifier that amplifies video signals outputted from the imaging part; a signal processing part that processes the video signals amplified by the variable gain amplifier; a brightness determining part that receives the video signals outputted from the signal processing part and determines a brightness level of the received video signals; a gain controlling part that controls a gain of the variable gain amplifier according to the brightness level of the video signals, wherein the gain of the variable gain amplifier is controlled to an gain value falling within an effective gain range and which does not permit a lowering of an SN ratio; a correction amount determining part that determines a correction amount for the video signals according to the brightness level of the video signals determined by the brightness determining part; a correcting part that corrects the video signals according to the correction amount determined by the correction amount determining part; and an outputting part that outputs the video signals corrected by the correction part to a displaying device.