An imaging apparatus including: a single-chip image sensor with a color filter array and capable of intermittent readout operation in horizontal and vertical directions; an intermittence control means for controlling the intermittent readout operation of the image sensor; and an interpolation means for processing signals read out from the image sensor in a thinned out pattern designated by the intermittence control means to form a reduced image consisting of trichromatic components; wherein the intermittence control means reads signals at a plurality of locations on the image sensor correspondingly to each pixel of the reduced image and controls reading at that time so that there are two or more types of color filters at the readout locations and at least one type of the color filters thereof is common to all pixels of the reduced image and at least one type of the color filters is not common to all pixels of the reduced image; and the interpolation means supplements signals corresponding to the type of unread color filter at each pixel of the reduced image to compute trichromatic components of an observed pixel.
A mobile communication terminal comprises a camera unit (34) and a main CPU. In the camera unit (34), a processing system including a color conversion circuit (66) and an image compression circuit (68) generates high-resolution compressed still image data based on interpolated image data of a photographed object. Also, a processing system including an image decompression circuit (74), a color conversion circuit (72), and a thinning-out circuit (70) generates low-resolution decompressed still image data based on the high-resolution compressed still image data. The main CPU activates an image compression circuit (68) when a release key is operated, and activates an image decompression circuit (74) when generation of the compressed still image data is completed. The low-resolution decompressed image data generated by activation of the image decompression circuit (74) is obtained by the main CPU from the camera unit and written into a VRAM. As a result, a decompressed image is displayed on an LCD.
