Image pickup device and image pickup method

An image pickup method of picking up an image using a solid state image pickup device, and performing image compression processing on the picked-up image, and recording the compressed image in a recording medium, characterized in that said method comprising:

• a characteristic value calculation step for extracting a characteristic value used for predicting an amount of codes to be generated at a time of compressing a video signal acquired by said solid state image pickup device from the video signal;
• a compression coefficient control step for controlling a compression coefficient which is used for data compression based on the characteristic value acquired in said characteristic value calculation step;
• and
• a data compression step for compressing the video signal acquired by said solid state image pickup device using the compression coefficient acquired in said compression coefficient control step, said compression coefficient control step including steps of using the characteristic value acquired by said characteristic value calculation means at a time of allowing users to check an image to be picked-up before picking up the image, and determining the compression coefficient at a time of picking up an image.