To provide a technology of correcting occurrence of white lines and smear without the need for increasing the number of vertical OB lines and dummy pixel lines.

Operations for continuously driving a solid-state imaging element are carried out by four horizontal lines even after pixel signals of the solid-state imaging element are outputted, and although pixel signal electric charges are not transferred for idle transfer periods 137, 147, 157 equivalent to the four horizontal lines, since a vertical CCD 104 is in operation similarly to the case with dummy pixels 103, the signal electric charges caused by white lines and smear are transferred and the electric charges can be used for generating a correction signal.

COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI