At this time, since the pattern noise described above is generated in the horizontal direction, the same amount of noise is superimposed on image data of the reference part 101 and image data of the comparison part 102 arranged in the horizontal direction. Therefore, when a correlation operation between the image data of the reference part 101 and the image data of the comparison part 102 is performed, noise components superimposed on the image data are cancelled and do not affect the result of the correlation operation.
However, since readout is performed at a different timing for the reference part 103 and the comparison part 104 arranged in the vertical direction, different amounts of noise may be superimposed on image data of the reference part 103 and image data of the comparison part 104. In such a case, the accuracy of a correlation operation between image data of the reference part 103 and image data of the comparison part 104 is reduced, and thereby the accuracy of focusing in autofocusing is reduced.