Patent ID: 8858429

Claim:
An endoscope device that emits illumination light from a tip portion of an endoscope insertion section to be inserted into a body cavity and outputs an observation image of an observation target region, the endoscope device comprising: a first light source that includes, as an emission source, a semiconductor light emitting device that emits blue light; a second light source that uses, as an emission source, another semiconductor light emitting device that emits violet light; a wavelength converting member that absorbs a part of the light emitted from the first light source to emit excited light so that white light is generated by combining the excited light and the blue light that is not absorbed by but passes through the wavelength converting member; a light quantity ratio changing unit that changes a light quantity ratio between the light emitted from the first light source and the light emitted from the second light source; and an imaging device, included in the endoscope insertion section, that captures the observation image of the observation target region irradiated with the illumination light and that outputs a picture signal of the observation image including blood vessel information, wherein the plurality of light sources including the first and second light sources are simultaneously turned on, and wherein the light quantity ratio changing unit changes the light quantity ratio so that as a component of the light emitted from the second light source in all components of the illumination light is increased, the observation image becomes an image in which information of a blood vessel included in a thin depth region of a mucosal surface layer of an organism tissue of the observation target region is enhanced, and as the component of the light emitted from the second light source is decreased, the observation image becomes an image in which information of a blood vessel included in a wide depth region spread from the mucosal surface layer to a deeper layer is shown.