The present invention resides in an image pickup device capable of reducing the deformation of the image of the photographed object. An image pickup element included in the image pickup device has a matrix of pixels, for which the control of the charge storage and the readout of image signal data is performed on a row-by-row or column-by-column basis. The storage controller controls the charge storage operation of the image pickup element. On the other hand, the readout controller controls the readout of the image signal data from the image pickup element, while keeping constant the unit period for the readout of the image signal data from the image pickup element. A synchronization signal generator provides a synchronization signal as a timing reference for the frame-based operation of the image pickup element. The synchronization signal period controller variably controls the repetition period of the synchronization signal, while the photographing is under way.