Patent ID: 7978226

Claim:
An imaging apparatus comprising: a plurality of pixels, each having a photoelectric conversion unit and a resetting unit to reset the photoelectric conversion unit; a driving unit configured to successively reset signal charges stored in the photoelectric conversion unit at every predetermined line and successively read out a signal based on the signal charges at every predetermined line, and a control unit which has a first mode in which a starting readout line of the pixels is fixed and a second mode in which the starting readout line of the pixels is changeable based on input control information; and which controls a second charge storage period T 1 in the second mode to be less or equal to a first charge storage period T 2 in the first mod; wherein the control unit is configured to limit a change range Dmax of the starting readout line in the second mode based on a difference between the first charge storage period T 2 and the second charge storage period T 1 , and the change range Dmax is given by an equation Dmax <(T 2 −T 1 )/Tout, where Tout is an output period of stored charges of the pixels at every line.