An image pickup element drive control method can outputs a sharp image effectively without producing any overlapped images when it is driven for a high rate image pickup operation. In a high rate image pickup operation using an interline transfer type solid state image pickup element having a light receiving section of a plurality of light receiving elements arranged in the form of a matrix and adapted to accumulate respective electric charges representing the received quantity of light, a vertical transfer section for transferring the electric charges read out from said light receiving elements of said light receiving section and a horizontal transfer section for outputting the electric charges transferred to it by way of said vertical transfer section, the high speed transfer period Tc is defined by using the pulse width of external control signal EXT-VD and the image pickup signal is output by synchronizing the high speed transfer that is conducted at the timing voluntarily selected when defining the operation of the electronic shutter with the reference signal (EXT-VD) that indicates the start of a high speed transfer period.