Patent ID: 7609320

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup device for picking up an image of a subject; a signal processing section for generating a composite image, the composite image having a relatively wider dynamic range than at least either a dynamic range of a long-time exposure image picked up with a relatively long exposure time by said image pickup device or a dynamic range of a short-time exposure image picked up with a relatively short exposure time by said image pickup device, by synthesizing said long-time exposure image and said short-time exposure image; and a control section for compressing said composite image and dynamically varying an assignment proportion of a high luminance dynamic range to a low-middle luminance dynamic range in a dynamic range of an output image to be outputted as a video signal, wherein the signal processing section determines a black level based on a periodicity of image signals that include alternatively disposed long-time exposure image signal and short-time exposure image signal, and wherein an exposure ratio of the relatively long exposure time to the relatively short exposure time is multiplied by the short-time exposure image so that an amount of input light of the long-time exposure image and the short-time exposure image is substantially the same.