Patent ID: 6864910

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus, comprising: image pickup means for picking up an image of an object; an optical system arranged to cause the image to be formed on said image pickup means; a pair of shutters disposed symmetrically with respect to an optical axis of said optical system and arranged to time divisionally transmit right and left parallactic images of the object; a pair of mirrors disposed symmetrically with respect to the optical axis of said optical system and arranged to respectively reflect and lead to said optical system the right and left parallactic images transmitted by said pair of shutters; object-distance information detecting means for detecting an object distance indicative of a distance to the object; convergence distance deciding means for deciding, on the basis of the detected object distance, a convergence distance indicative of a distance to an intersection point of optical axes defined by said pair of mirrors; and driving means for driving said pair of mirrors in such a way as to attain the decided convergence distance; wherein said image pickup apparatus has a first mode in which the convergence distance is shorter than the object distance, a second mode in which the convergence distance is substantially equal to the object distance, and a third mode in which the convergence distance is longer than the object distance; and said convergence-distance deciding means decides the convergence distance on the basis of one of the first mode, the second mode and the third mode.