A charge coupled device (CCD) camera includes a CCD imager circuit, a compression engine, and a control circuit coupled to both the CCD imager circuit and the compression engine. The CCD imager circuit is characterized by an integration time defined by clock pulses from the control circuit. The compression engine generates successive frame requests. The control circuit generates the clock pulses to define the integration time based on a time between the sucessive frame requests. The camera further includes a histogram accumulator and an automatic gain controlled (AGC) amplifier coupled between the CCD imager circuit and the histogram accumulator. The CCD imager circuit is characterized by a predetermined maximum imager dynamic range and generates successive frames of imager data values, each successive frame of imager data values being characterized by an imager data value dynamic range and each frame of imager data values being generated based on a corresponding integration time. The AGC amplifier is characterized by an AGC gain defined by a gain control signal and characterized by a maximum output dynamic range. The AGC amplifier processes the successive frames of imager data values into corresponding successive frames of gain controlled data values, each successive frame of gain controlled data values being characterized by a gain controlled data value dynamic range. The histogram accumulator processes a first frame of gain controlled data values to determine a first frame result. The control circuit generates the clock pulses based on the first frame results to define the integration time that corresponds to a second frame of imager data values so that the integration time is maximized while the imager data value dynamic range is less than the maximum imager dynamic range, and the control circuit further generates the gain control signal based on the first frame results and the maximum imager dynamic range to minimize the AGC gain required so that the gain controlled data value dynamic range is equal to a predetermined range within the maximum output dynamic range.