A driving apparatus comprises an actuator, the actuator comprising an electromechanical conversion element and a driving shaft attached to the electromechanical conversion element, wherein the driving apparatus expands and contracts the electromechanical conversion element by applying a driving signal to the electromechanical conversion element and reciprocally moves the driving shaft in accordance with expansion and contraction movement of the electromechanical conversion element so as to move a driven member frictionally engaged with the driving shaft, and wherein the driving signal is a pulse signal, and a time period corresponding to a half wavelength of a damping vibration displacement of a lowest resonance frequency in the actuator is set as a shorter output time among a high output time period and a low output time period of the driving signal.