Imaging Device

An imaging apparatus comprising a flash for emitting light onto an object, an image pickup device formed from a plurality of pixels, each of which can perform any of an exposure operation and a reading operation thereof at a timing different from that of the other, a detector circuit for detecting a brightness of image information formed by the image pickup device, and a control circuit for controlling operations of the image pickup device and of the detector circuit, said imaging apparatus characterized in that:

• said control circuit causes the flash to fire a preflash before a main-flashing operation by the flash, causes the image pickup device to form an image at the time of the preflash, causes the detector circuit to detect the brightness of image information formed at the time of the preflash, causes the image pickup device to form a before-preflash image with said flash not fired before the preflash operation by said flash, and causes the detector circuit to detect the brightness of image information formed before the preflash, to compute a differential value obtained from the brightness of image information formed before the preflash and the brightness of image information formed during the preflash respectively detected by said detector circuit, and compute an amount of main-flashing light to be fired by the flash on the basis of the computed differential value;
• and
• said control circuit causes starting the exposure operation simultaneously for all the pixels of said image pickup device before a preflash operation and during a preflash operation by said flash, whereby to form the images before the preflash operation and during the preflash operation.