PURPOSE: To improve picture quality in large light quantity especially by eliminating the transfer remaining of smear electric charge for the electric charge discharging period of the vertical CCD of an FIT type image pickup element.

CONSTITUTION: In the method for driving a solid-state image pickup device where a light receiving part having vertical CCD arranged in plural arrays, a storage part composed of vertical CCD continuous to each vertical CCD and a horizontal CCD connected to the vertical CCD of the storage part are provided and the vertical CCD of each array in the light receiving part is connected to plural light receiving elements, a signal reading period (3), a frame shift period (4), a light shift period (1) and a discharging period (2) are provided, and the transfer speed in the light receiving part is made to be faster than the transfer speed of the storage part for the line shift period.