Image Pickup Apparatus Drive Mode Switching Without Live View Freezing

The patent applies preliminary action by preparing and storing image data from multiple readout rows in advance before mode switching occurs. When the drive mode needs to change, the system can immediately switch to using pre-prepared image data from alternative readout rows, eliminating the time lag that would normally occur during mode transitions. This ensures continuous live view display without freezing while still enabling power consumption reduction or image quality improvement through mode changes.

The system performs preliminary action by pre-acquiring and storing image data from multiple readout rows before mode switching. When transitioning to high-definition mode, the system can immediately utilize pre-prepared high-quality image data, ensuring both improved image quality and continuous display without freezing. This eliminates the trade-off between image quality improvement and display continuity.

The patent applies the taking out principle by extracting the gain correction requirement entirely from the system. Instead of performing complex gain correction operations to maintain image data continuity during mode changes, the system simply switches to using pre-acquired image data from alternative readout rows. This eliminates gain correction control complexity and potential image quality degradation while maintaining continuous image data output.