PURPOSE: To obtain the video camera in which an image pickup range of a wide picture is wider than that of a normal picture.

CONSTITUTION: When a normal mode is selected by a switch 20, a video signal used to display a picture whose aspect ratio is 4:3 (normal picture) outputted from a processing circuit 3 is fed to a recording section 5 without any processing. When a wide mode is selected by the switch 20, a video signal used to display a picture whose aspect ratio is 16:9 (wide picture) resulting from magnification processing of part of outputs from the processing circuit 3 is fed to the recording section 5. When the mode is switched from the normal mode to the wide mode, a zoom position after the switching is selected to be a multiple of 1/1.3 of the zoom position before the switching by the control of a zoom control section 16. Thus, the picked-up picture is compressed by a reduction rate of 1/1.3, the video signal used to display the wide picture includes the same picture information as that of the normal picture in the vertical direction and includes wider picture information than that of the normal picture in the horizontal direction.