An aspect of the present invention provides an image taking device comprising an image pickup device which picks up an image in a field, a luminance measuring device which divides the image into the predetermined number of blocks to measure the luminance level of each block, a reference average luminance level calculating device which calculates an average luminance level in a predetermined reference area in the image, a bright block sampling device which compares the average luminance level in the reference area with the luminance level of each block to sample a bright block high in luminance level, a backlight determining device which determines whether the picked up image is backlit based on the average luminance level of the bright blocks and the average luminance level of the reference area, and an exposure controlling device which calculates an exposure value based on the result of the determination as to the backlight to control exposure.