Patent ID: 8767059

Claim:
An electronic endoscope, comprising: an illumination unit that switches among a plurality of light beams having different spectra from each other so as to illuminate a subject, the light beams including at least white light and excitation light for exciting the subject to produce fluorescence; an imaging unit that includes: a solid-state imaging device; and an objective optical system that guides, to the solid-state imaging device, light returning from the subject which the illumination unit illuminates; and an image generating unit that generates image data based on image signals output from the imaging unit, wherein the solid-state imaging device includes a sensitivity adjusting unit that lowers sensitivity, to the excitation light, of only pixels which are sensitive to the fluorescence among a plurality of pixels of the solid-state imaging device, said plurality of pixels comprising said pixels which are sensitive to the fluorescence and pixels which are insensitive to the fluorescence, wherein the light guided by the objective optical system is incident directly onto the solid-state imaging device, wherein the sensitivity adjusting unit includes color filters provided for the plurality of pixels of the solid-state imaging device, and wherein thicknesses of the color filters for the pixels which are sensitive to the fluorescence are thicker than those of the color filters for said pixels which are insensitive to the fluorescence.