To readily discriminate the quality of a MOS type solid-state image pickup element in an inspection method for the MOS-type solid-state image pickup element.

A digital signal is given to the anode of a photoelectric conversion element of each MOS-type solid-state image pickup element, a 1st MOS transistor(TR) 1 and a 2nd MOS TR 5 are made conductive by a vertical scanning unit 3 and a horizontal scanning unit 4, a signal passing through each MOS-type solid-state image pickup element is sequentially inspected, to discriminate the quality (presence of electrical failures) of the MOS-type solid-state image pickup elements. According to this inspection method, electrically defective solid-state image pickup elements (defective elements) can be screened electrically, without requiring high inspection accuracy different from a conventional method.