To provide a stereoscopic endoscope apparatus which can suppress an increase in processing load of a system as much as possible and can achieve a high quality 3D image and a wide angle 2D image in the stereoscopic endoscope apparatus where a 3D image and a wide angle 2D image can be formed by a parallax image photographed by a pair of photographing parts.

In a pair of left and right parallax images (a right image, a left image) photographed by a pair of left and right photographing parts, resolution of an image in a visual field range used for displaying a 3D image is made higher than resolution of an image in the visual field range to be used for displaying a 2D image. As its means, among parallax images, images in the visual field range to be used for displaying the 2D image are thinned out or a 3D image is acquired in an area of high resolution of an optical image whose image is formed by a photographing optical system.