<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce manufacturing cost in an image pickup device capable of obtaining an image of a wide dynamic range. <P>SOLUTION: When a saturation flag of HDR-RAW data stored in a BRAM (Brain Random Access Memory) data storing part 19 is '1' and a saturation flag of HDR-RAW data stored in an input data storing part 18 is '0', that is, when a pixel in a saturated state so far is not saturated any more, HDR-RAW data stored in the input data storing part 18 is recorded in a BRAM 10 instead of the HDR-RAW data so far. Thus, there is no need of providing a delay element to be able to consequently reduce manufacturing cost as much as for the delay element, while being different from, for example, a method which catches a second image after catching a first image, delays the image data of the first image by a delay element and records pixel data of pixels in the second image instead of image data of pixels in which a luminance value in the delayed first image is a maximum value of a dynamic range. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI 
IMAGE PICKUP DEVICE