Patent ID: 7154552

Claim:
A solid-state image pickup apparatus comprising: a solid-state image pickup device in which a first light receiving pixel is disposed in a plurality of lines in one-line units, and a second light receiving pixel capable of being driven independently from said first light receiving pixel is disposed in at least one-line units between first light receiving pixels of the plurality of lines; a drive circuit for driving the first and second light receiving pixels of said solid-state image pickup device and accumulating information charges at mutually different times between first light receiving pixel and second light receiving pixel, as well as transferring and outputting information charges accumulated in said first and second light receiving pixels independently of each other; a timing control circuit, connected to the drive circuit, for respectively setting the storage time of information charges at the first light receiving pixel and the storage time of information charges at the second light receiving pixel of said solid-state image pickup device; and a signal processing circuit for generating an image signal by adding a first output corresponding to the first light receiving pixel and a second output corresponding to the second light receiving pixel of said solid-state image pickup device; wherein after driving the first and second light receiving pixels to accumulate information charges in the first and second light receiving pixels, the drive circuit adds information charges accumulated in the first light receiving pixel and information charges accumulated in the second light receiving pixel, and, the drive circuit drives the first and second light receiving pixels to further accumulate information charges in the first and second light receiving pixels and further adds information charges accumulated in the first light receiving pixels and the added information charges.