A solid state pickup system having improved color reproducibility characteristics involves using additional photodetector elements to produce color signals including wavelength components in areas of negative stimulus values. These color signals are subtracted from conventionally produced color signals, such conventionally produced color signals being incapable of representing the negative stimulus values. The algebraic difference between the color signals resulting from the subtraction operation results in a color signal adequately represented in a wider range of wavelength characteristics, including the negative stimulus values, thus greatly improving color reproducibility.