Patent ID: 7586526

Claim:
An image sensing apparatus comprising: an image sensing element having a plurality of pixels configured to generate charges in correspondence with an amount of incoming light, a plurality of vertical transfer units and a horizontal transfer unit configured to transfer a plurality of charge signals generated by the plurality of pixels; and a controller that controls said vertical transfer units to transfer and discard noise charge accumulated in each of said vertical transfer units during exposing said image sensing element a plurality of times after said image sensing element is exposed for a predetermined period of time and before any of the charge signals generated by the pixels are transferred to said vertical transfer units, wherein the transferring and discarding of noise charge accumulated in said vertical transfer units by said controller includes a first transfer of noise charges at a first transfer speed, and a second transfer of noise charges at a second transfer speed different from the first transfer speed, wherein the first transfer is performed in a charge sweep-away period of said noise charge and the second transfer is performed in an idle read period of said vertical and horizontal transfer units.