Patent ID: 7226412

Claim:
An endoscope system which displays normal-light images by white light in a normal-light image mode and fluorescent images including fluorescent information in a fluorescent image mode, comprising: an endoscope which houses a monochrome image pickup device for capturing the images of reflected light and fluorescence from the body cavity, an excitation light cut filter which is installed in front of said image pickup device for shielding said excitation light, and an endoscope ID which includes information on the type of the endoscope; and a light source unit further comprising a first switching filter which includes a filter which irradiates light including excitation light for the fluorescent image mode and a filter for generating continuous light of red, green and blue (RGB) for the normal-light image mode, which are switched according to the switching of the fluorescent image mode and the normal-light image mode, and a second switching filter, which includes at least one limiting filter for limiting a part of the wavelengths of the excitation light of said first switching filter, and can switch said limiting filters according to said endoscope ID or observation state in the fluorescence mode, wherein said excitation light cut filter shields the excitation light generated by said first and second filters.