Abstract: An endoscope includes an image pickup unit 30 having a solid-state image pickup device 32 such as a CCD on a tip end side of an elongate insertion section. This image pickup unit 30 constitutes a tip end side unit 36U and a rear end side unit 43U by conducting a surface treatment (metallization) to nonmetal members such as a tip end cover glass 31 and a rear end cover glass 35, and by airtight coupling surface-treated portions of the nonmetal members to metal members such as a tip end cover glass frame 36 and a rear end cover glass frame 43 by brazing using soldering, and constitutes an optical system unit 60 by airtight coupling the metal members to metal members of an insulating unit 38U formed by airtight coupling a pipe member 41 and a ring member 42 to an insulating frame 38 by welding.

Abstract: An image pickup apparatus according to the present invention structured to synthesize a plurality of images having different quantities of exposure to enlarge the image pickup dynamic range is intended to prevent rise of the noise level of the connection point of the images. A maximum value detection circuit controls the quantity of exposure of an image pickup device to be a first quantity of exposure and a second quantity of exposure smaller than the first quantity of exposure and optimizes the second quantity of exposure in accordance with the second quantity of exposure. A first image signal corresponding to the first quantity of exposure and a second image signal corresponding to the thus-optimized second quantity of exposure are synthesized by a synthesizing circuit.