Still image pickup camera using high speed clear pulses to define a storage interval corresponding to a desired shutter speed

Claim 1

A still image pickup camera comprising: a solid state image pickup device having an image pickup area, a temporary storage area, and a horizontal shift register; clock generating means for outputting within a vertical blanking period a group of first high-speed transfer pulses to transfer storage signal charges of one field in said image pickup area to said temporary storage area, for outputting within one field interval a group of second transfer pulses to transfer the storage signal charged of one field in the temporary storage area by an amount of every horizontal line synchronously with a horizontal sync signal to said horizontal shift register, and for outputting every horizontal scan period a group of third high-speed transfer pulses to transfer the image data of one horizontal line, by an amount of every pixel, which has been transferred to the horizontal shift register; clear pulse generating means for generating one or more times a group of high-speed clear pulses at a desired timing in an interval between adjacent vertical sync signals; and means for feeding said group of high-speed clear pulses to both said image pickup area and temporary storage area to clear both these areas.