PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it easy for an external device to get access to a memory and to prevent image information from being changed. SOLUTION: When a recording trigger switch 5 is operated, an image, which is outputted from a camera signal processing circuit 17 at that time, is written in a semiconductor memory 12, data-compressed at a data compression circuit 21, and stored on a semiconductor memory 13. Assuming that an external device (not shown) is connected to a connector 14 at that time, even if the external device instructs to capture the image from the semiconductor memory 13 when the semiconductor memory 13 is writing the image, a state detection circuit 23 detects it, and prohibits the image from being captured to the external device. Moreover, the state detection circuit 23 detects when the image of the semiconductor memory 13 is going to be captured to the external device, and then an AND gate 6 is made to turn off even if the recording trigger switch 5 is operated, thus prohibiting the image from being written to the semiconductor memory 13. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI