PURPOSE: To provide a camera which can offer a picture in which an excessive brightness range is suppressed.

CONSTITUTION: The camera is provided with a lens 21 for photography which forms the image of a subject, a spatial optical modulation element 10 which has two or more reflecting surfaces reflecting the luminous flux from the lens 21 and can changeably direct the relected luminous flux to a first direction and the other directions for each reflecting surface, a light-sensitive member 23 placed in the first direction, a photometric means 27 which measures the luminance distribution of the subject, a luminance region detecting means 26 which divides the luminance distribution into a first region within a specified luminance range and the other region, an exposure period setting means 25 which sets a first exposure period corresponding to the luminance in the first region and a second exposure period corresponding to the luminance in the other region, and a drive means 24 which casts the reflecting direction of the reflecting surface corresponding to the first region to the first direction only during the first exposure period and the reflecting direction of the reflecting surface corresponding to the other region to the first direction only during the second exposure period.