To provide an article inspection apparatus which is capable of evenly and surely inspecting defects on the surfaces of articles such as fruits and vegetables.

This apparatus has a transporting means H which transports many apples A in a prescribed state along a transporting path, a camera 5 which is disposed on the mid-way of the transporting path and photographs the images of the apples A, a defect detecting means which detects the defects (flaws, etc.), on the surfaces of the apples A in accordance with the image information obtained by the camera 5 and a relative position changing means which changes the relative positional relation between the camera 5 and the apples A when photographing the image of the apples A by the camera 5.