According to the present invention, a narrow latitude caused by a narrow dynamic range of a solid state image pickup device is improved, and a video camera capable of obtaining a high quality video signal having no signal saturation and black collapse is realized. Scanning is executed in a plurality of times during normal one picture scanning period (one field or one frame period) prescribed in the broadcasting system, and the stop value of a stop mechanism of a camera lens is prescribed so that the levels of video signals corresponding to respective pictures become a fixed value, thus obtaining respective output signals with no saturation. These output signals are stored in a memory in each picture unit after A/D conversion. Then, a certain arithmetic processing is performed in synchronization with respective picture positions, and these video signals are outputted in synchronization with the vertical synchronizing timing prescribed in the broadcasting system as digital video signals having predetermined levels. These output digital video signals are restored again to the synchronizing frequency prescribed in the orginal broadcasting system thereafter. The digital video signals thus obtained have S/N improved to be better than the video signal which is outputted from the image pickup device. Accordingly, the dynamic range is also improved sufficiently.