Patent ID: 8436922

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup element including a matrix of pixels, each of the pixels including a photoelectric converter which generates a charge in accordance with a quantity of incident light through photoelectric conversion, a storage unit which stores the charge generated by the photoelectric converter, a transfer unit which transfers the charge from the photoelectric converter to the storage unit, and a reset unit which resets the storage unit; an optical lens barrel configured to form an object image on the image pickup element and which includes a first lens unit having at least one lens, a second lens unit which includes at least one lens having an optical axis the same as that of the first lens unit and which is located between the first lens unit and the image pickup element, a light-shielding unit which is located in the vicinity of the second lens unit and which blocks light to be incident on the image pickup element; and a control unit for performing control such that the photoelectric converter starts the photoelectric conversion by turning off the transfer unit after the photoelectric converter and the storage unit included in all rows of the image pickup element are simultaneously reset by turning on the reset unit and the transfer unit included in all the rows, the light-shielding unit is operated after the photoelectric converter transmits the charge to the storage unit by simultaneously turning on the transfer unit in all the rows after a set exposure time has elapsed so as to block light to be incident on the photoelectric converter, and voltages corresponding to charges stored in the storage unit are successively read on a row-by-row basis.