Patent ID: 8274574

Claim:
An imaging apparatus comprising a receiving unit that receives, when pressed, an instruction for shooting an image, wherein the imaging apparatus has, as a shooting mode, a normal shooting mode for generating one piece of still image data by one press of the receiving unit, and a continuous shooting mode for generating a plurality of pieces of still image data while the receiving unit is being pressed, wherein the imaging apparatus further comprises: a setting unit that sets the shooting mode; an imaging element including a plurality of pixels, and having, as a read mode, a normal read mode for outputting image signals of all pixels and a mixing read mode for mixing and outputting an image signal of a predetermined pixel and image signals of peripheral pixels of the predetermined pixel; and a pixel mixing controller that controls the read mode of the imaging element, wherein the continuous shooting mode includes a normal continuous shooting mode and a high-speed continuous shooting mode in which more pieces of image data are generated per unit time while the receiving unit is being pressed than in the normal continuous shooting mode, and wherein the pixel mixing controller controls the imaging element (i) to operate in the normal read mode when the shooting mode is set to the normal continuous shooting mode, and (ii) to operate in the mixing read mode when the shooting mode is set to the high-speed continuous shooting mode.