IMAGE PICKUP METHOD AND APPARATUS, AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ADAPTING TO SYNTHESIZE A PLURALITY OF IMAGES

In an image pickup apparatus, a level compensator compensates the level of an image xL (i, j) sensed by an image sensor by exposure for a long time on the basis of the exposure of the image to produce a compensated image xL′ (i, j), while another level compensator compensates the level of an image xS (i, j) sensed by the image sensor by exposure for a short time on the basis of the exposure of the image to produce a compensated image xS′ (i, j). The image pickup apparatus also includes an image synthesizer to synthesize these compensates images xL′ (i, j) and xS′ (i, j) to produce a single synthetic image x (i, j). A dynamic range compressor also included in the image pickup apparatus compresses the synthetic image x (i, j) to produce a compressed image y (i, j) for delivery to outside.