There is provided an image
pickup apparatus that is capable of being reduced in size when a
barrel unit including a dimming device is used. An image
pickup apparatus 1 includes a
barrel unit 2 that emits incident image-
pickup light after bending the
optical path of the image-pickup light, and an image pickup device 3 that detects the image-pickup light emitted from the
barrel unit 2 to obtain an image pickup
signal. The barrel unit 2 has a dimming device (a
liquid crystal dimming device 26) in a bending region of the
optical path of the image-pickup light. As compared with an existing image pickup apparatus in which the dimming device is disposed in a region (on an
optical path between the bending region and the image pickup device 3) on the image pickup device 3 side in the barrel unit, a length of an optical path (a length of a lens) of the image-pickup light up to the image pickup device 3 is reduced by an amount of the installation space of the dimming device.