It is so arranged that the portion of the image of a subject that is a face takes on an appropriate brightness. The image of the subject is obtained by imaging the subject. The subject image is subjected to face detection processing and an area construed as being the face-image portion is found. An area corresponding to this area is set in an image obtained by standardizing the subject image. An AE area used in control of exposure is specified from the area that has been set. Brightness is calculated based upon image data representing the image within the specified AE area, and exposure is controlled. Even if an image such as a tree is in the background of the face image, the brightness of the face-image portion is calculated comparatively accurately and a subject image having the appropriate brightness is obtained.