To provide a digital camera allowed to be used at ease for a long period after once purchasing it.

A picture signal thinned out and read out from an image pickup part of a digital camera is sent to a display part and transmitted also to an external control device always connected by radio communication or the like and a control signal based on the picture signal is received from the control device to control focusing, exposure, flashing, etc. In the case of disabled communication or manual selection, the external control is switched to the internal control of the digital camera. The necessary information of individual digital cameras is transmitted to the control device. At the time of release, all pixel reading signals from the image pickup part are sent and stored in the control device.