An endoscope apparatus 1 includes a main body 4 to which a scope having an image pickup device at a distal end portion 8 of an insertion portion 7b is detachably attachable, a video signal processing section 22, a display section 5 and a control section 21. The control section 21 displays on the display section 5 a message for instructing a user to light-shield the distal end portion 8 according to an instruction for starting initialization processing to acquire a reference image of the image pickup device, acquires the reference image with the distal end portion 8 light-shielded and stores the acquired reference image in a memory 27.
