Image pickup apparatus with white balance control

DETAILED DESCRIPTION This invention is made in view of the above stated problem of the prior art.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide an image pickup apparatus which is capable of giving an apposite white balance for both the illumination by existing stationary ambient light on the photographing object and the auxiliary illumination by an illuminating device.
To attain this object, an embodiment of this invention is provided with a light source (or an illuminating device) which is capable of continuously changing the hue of the light thereof and also with a colorimetric circuit.
The embodiment is thus arranged to measure the hue of ambient light obtained without the light of an illuminating device and then to cause the illuminating device to illuminate the object by generating a light of the same hue as that of the ambient light.
The embodiment arranged in this manner is capable of reproducing an image in its original color with a white balance obtained appositely to both the existing ambient light and the light of the illuminating device employed.
Further, to attain this object, another embodiment of this invention is arranged to separately measure the quantity of light obtained by the ambient light from that of light obtained by flash illumination; and to make white balance adjustment by prorating the amplifying gain of the ambient light and that of flash illumination according to a ratio between the two light quantities thus separately measured.
More specifically, the image pickup apparatus which is arranged according to this invention to have an optical image formed on an image sensor and to take out the image by converting it into a plurality of color or chrominance signals comprises: flashing means; storage means for storing color temperature data relative to the flashing means; light measuring means arranged to measure the luminance intensity of ambient light and that of light emitted by the flashing means separately from each other; color measuring means for measuring color temperature due to the ambient light; amplifying means for controlling the balance between the color signals formed by the image sensor; and control means for controlling an amplification gain of the amplifying means according to the value of the luminance intensity measured by the light measuring means, the value of the color temperature measured by the color measuring means and the color temperature data relative to the flashing means