The present disclosure relates to an imaging device and a control method that achieve low electric power consumption. A light source is of a wavelength received by an OPD pixel which is a pixel that detects light exposure, and its light emission is controlled by a PC or the like. The OPD pixel is a pixel specialized to detect a brightness of an imaging environment, and converts a received light amount to a current value, without electric power consumption, by utilizing photoelectric conversion. A detector detects a change (light intensity, light reception time, blinking pattern, etc.) of the current value of the OPD pixel, and upon detection, issues an operation instruction to another device (not depicted) or a solid state imaging device, by supplying a detection result to a control unit. The present disclosure can be applied to the solid state imaging device that includes the OPD pixel, for example.