The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus and method capable of improving operability regarding a zooming operation and suppressing the photographing of an unstably focused image. A zoom information acquisition section 201 acquires the information specifying both a zoom direction of zoom-in or zoom-out and a zoom speed. A subject information acquisition section 202 acquires the information, which specifies the coordinate position of the upper left corner of an AF tracking frame and the area of the AF tracking frame, regarding a detected subject. A threshold value setting section 203 sets the value of a predetermined zoom speed as a threshold value for determining whether or not to release a subject tracking AF function. A switching determination section 204 determines whether or not to release the subject tracking AF function on the basis of the zoom speed acquired by the zoom information acquisition section 201 and the threshold value set by the threshold value setting section 203.