PURPOSE: To prevent production of flicker on an image pickup pattern by controlling a shutter speed of an image pickup device based on a detection signal from a lighting characteristic detection means.

CONSTITUTION: A controller 4 obtains the characteristic of illuminance from a time (t) measured by N times measurements and when the brightness of lighting changes at a frequency of 100Hz, the shutter speed data SD is brought forcibly into 1/100sec except the period switched into the state of the strobe mode to obtain the flickerless mode.