Abstract

A color solid state image pick-up apparatus comprises an optical system which separates incident light into a brightness light component and a plurality of color light components, a first solid state image pick-up device having photoelectric converting units disposed at a position of a light image of the brightness light component and a group of second solid state image pick-up devices with their photoelectric converting units disposed at positions respectively corresponding to positions of light images of the color light components.Each one of the second solid state image pick-up devices includes charge transfer electrodes and a charge detection element. There are provided first drive circuit which drives the first solid state image pick-up device for sequentially detecting signal charges corresponding to respective photoelectric converting units of the first solid state image pick-up device, and a second drive circuit which drives the second solid state image pick-up devices so as to synthesize signal charges which are sequentially transferred through portions beneath at least two charge transfer electrodes of at least one second solid state image device to enter into the charge detection elements thus producing a color signal.