Patent ID: 6980363

Claim:
An image observation apparatus comprising: an image pickup system, configured and positioned to acquire an image of an object to be viewed by an eye, denoted as an object image, including: an image pickup optical system receiving light from the object; and an image pickup device receiving light from said image pickup optical system to acquire an image of the object; and a display system, including: display means for displaying the object image acquired by said image pickup device; and an eyepiece optical system configured and positioned to guide light from said display means to an eye, wherein the position of an exit pupil of said eyepiece optical system is approximately matched with the position of an entrance pupil of the eye, so as to permit observation of the image by the eye, wherein an optical axis of said image pickup optical system connecting said image pickup optical system with the object is approximately aligned with an extension line of an eye-side optical axis of said eyepiece optical system, wherein said image pickup device and said image pickup optical system are positioned closer to said display system than an image pickup device and image pickup optical system positioned to place the entrance pupil of said image pickup optical system at a position optically equivalent to the position of the exit pupil of said eyepiece optical system, thereby shifting the entrance pupil of said image pickup optical system in a direction toward the object from a position optically equivalent to the exit pupil of said eyepiece optical system, and wherein the following condition is satisfied: d≦60 (mm) where d is a shift amount of the entrance pupil of said image pickup optical system relative to the position equivalent to the entrance pupil of the eye.