Patent ID: 8390679

Claim:
A capsule endoscope device comprising: an illumination unit that includes at least a white light illumination unit that emits white light and a special light illumination unit that emits specific visible light components, the illumination unit illuminating a living tissue using at least one of the white light illumination unit and the special light illumination unit; an imaging unit that captures an image of the living tissue, the imaging unit comprising a plurality of imaging systems having different focal distances; a transmission unit that transmits imaging information containing the image captured by the imaging unit; a storage unit that stores a threshold with respect to information on a distance between the capsule endoscope device and the living tissue; a detection unit that detects the information on the distance between the capsule endoscope device and the living tissue; an adjustment unit that adjusts a position of the center of gravity of the capsule endoscope device; and an output unit that compares the information on the distance detected by the detection unit with the threshold, wherein the output unit selects an image capturing condition for a special light observation mode that causes only the special light illumination unit to emit light if a result of the comparing indicates that the distance to the living tissue is not larger than the threshold, the output unit selects an image capturing condition of a normal light observation mode that causes at least the white light illumination unit to emit light if the result of the comparing indicates that the distance to the living tissue is larger than the threshold, the output unit outputs the selected image capturing condition to an operation unit that relates to image capturing, the output unit selects based on the result of the comparing an image capturing condition for performing image capturing with the either of the imaging systems, and the output unit outputs the selected image capturing condition to the operation unit and causes the adjustment unit to perform an adjustment operation.