Electronic still camera including an EEPROM memory card and having a continuous shoot mode

An electronic still camera capable of continuously shooting a scene and storing picture data representative of pictures of said scene in a memory card, said camera comprising:

• picture recording means using an EEPROM as said memory card;
• image pick-up means for continuously shooting a scene;
• signal processing means for executing signal processing with picture data fed from said image pick-up means to thereby produce processed picture data;
• compressing means for coding said processed picture data by compression to thereby produce compressed picture data;
• buffer means including a dual port memory for storing the compressed picture data representative of a plurality of serial frames and outputted by said compressing means at a high speed, and feeding the compressed picture data to said picture recording means at a low writing speed, said dual port memory further having a data writing speed and a data reading speed which are different from each other;
• and
• storage control means for causing said image recording means to record said compressed picture data fed from said buffer means frame by frame,
• system control means for activating said compressing means, said buffer means, and said storage control means when a shutter button for driving said image pick-up means is pressed, and deactivating said compressing means, said buffer means, and said storage control means when all the picture data are read out of said buffer means
• said buffer means further comprising:
• write address generating means for feeding a write address to said dual port memory in synchronism with a read-out speed from said compressing means;
• read address generating means for generating a read address in synchronism with a data write-in speed to said image recording means;
• control means for causing said write address generating means and said read address generating means to start operating when data outputted by said compressing means is valid and said image recording means is ready to write;
• and
• detecting means for inhibiting a reading operation on detecting that the addresses from said write address generating means and said read address generating means are identical.