1. An image pickup apparatus comprising: at least one processor or circuit configured to act as units comprising: (1) an accumulation unit configured to make an image pickup device perform a plurality of times of charge storage and charge readout at a predetermined interval to obtain a plurality of images; (2) a photometry unit configured to perform photometry to the plurality of images to obtain a plurality of photometry values; (3) a detection unit configured to detect a light-amount variation characteristic of light from an object based on the plurality of photometry values; (4) a combining unit configured to apply a combining process to the plurality of images to obtain a combined image; and (5) an object recognition unit configured to apply an object recognition process to detect the object in the combined image, wherein the accumulation unit makes the image pickup device perform the plurality of times of charge storage with a frequency higher than a predicted frequency of light-amount variation of light from the object.