To quickly and quietly execute the field angle adjustment of the other party camera in a video conference system by picking up the image of an area that is broader than the size of an image that is transmitted to another station and selecting an area that is transmitted to the other station from an obtained image.

A CCD driver circuit 12 reads an image of an overall conference room view projected by a wide angle lens on a CCD image sensor 11 and it is temporarily stored in an image memory 13. When the opposite station side inputs a signal of a field angle change request for changing an image to be monitored, the signal of the field angle change request is transmitted as an image selection signal (e) to an image selection reading circuit 14 through a video conference system controlling part 17. The circuit 14 digitally outputs only pixel data (CIF format image) which is located at a position designated by the signal (e) and a prescribed image size among image data stored in the memory 13 and sends the CIF format image (b) to an image compressing device 15.