Image pickup device adaptable to display fewer vertical pixels

In an image pickup device, in order to enable signal charge read-out from the image pickup element in a thinning-out manner from the pixels of predetermined rows, even in case the image display unit has a number of pixels in the vertical direction smaller than the number of pixels that can be outputted from the image pickup element in a single image pickup operation, and also to form a color image even from the thinned-out image signal from the image pickup element, the signal charges are read in thinning-out manner from the pixels of predetermined rows, then there is formed a line-sequential color difference signal consisting of a signal S(odd) in which color signals (Ye+Mg) and (Cy+G) are repeated in this order and a signal S(even) in which color signals (Ye+G) and (Cy+Mg) are repeated in this order and an image signal corresponding to a row in every four rows in the vertical direction is outputted from the image pickup element.