Patent ID: 7023484

Claim:
An exposure control apparatus configured to determine an exposure value based on a luminance of a photographic screen and to perform exposure control based on a determined exposure value, said exposure control apparatus comprising: an area generating unit configured to divide the photographic screen into a predetermined number of areas; a deciding unit configured to decide, for each area generated by said area generating unit, whether a main subject having a luminance higher than a predetermined luminance threshold exists within the areas; an average luminance calculating unit configured to calculate an average luminance in an area generated by the area generating unit according to a decision result by said deciding unit; and an exposure value determining unit configured to determine an exposure value based on the average luminance calculated by said average luminance calculating unit, wherein said deciding unit counts pixels, each pixel having a luminance higher than the predetermined luminance threshold, out of pixels forming the area and decides whether the count value of high luminance pixels exceeds a predetermined count threshold, and said average luminance calculating unit calculates the average luminance by using luminance per se of the high luminance pixel when the deciding unit decides that the high luminance pixel count value exceeds the predetermined count threshold; in contrast, said average luminance calculating unit substitutes a predetermined low luminance smaller than the predetermined luminance threshold for a luminance of the high luminance pixel so as to calculate the average luminance when the deciding unit decides that the high luminance pixel count value is equal to or smaller than the predetermined count threshold.