To provide a CCD camera system and an image processing method capable of more highly precisely identifying the dimension and shape of an image pickup object by simple and inexpensive constitution.

The image pickup object is image picked up by using a CCD camera provided with two-dimensionally arranged plural CCD pixels. Then, based on the image picked-up result of the CCD camera, a plurality of split areas obtained by splitting images corresponding to the image picked-up result are stipulated (S5). The average value of illuminance detected by the CCD pixels corresponding to the split areas is obtained and a threshold is obtained from the average value (S6). Then, the CCD pixel provided with the illuminance close to the threshold among the illuminance detected by the respective CCD pixels corresponding to the divided areas is decided as a boundary candidate (S7). Then, from the illuminance detected by the CCD pixel of the boundary candidate, the illuminance detected by the CCD pixels arranged around it and the threshold, illuminance interpolation is performed (S8). Then, from the result of the illuminance interpolation, the boundary coordinate of the image of an external shape included in the image corresponding to the image picked-up result is found (S9).