An image pickup apparatus for applying high-speed dark shading correction and reducing random noise in a black image is provided. The image pickup apparatus has an image pickup element capable of reading image signals corresponding to one frame, which are obtained by photoelectric conversion, on a field-by-field basis. With the image pickup element exposed to light, first image signals corresponding to one frame are read. Then, with the image pickup element shielded from light, second image signals are read from fields that are fewer than fields constituting one frame. Each of third image signals is generated by averaging the second image signals for each of blocks obtained by dividing the image pickup element and converting the average image signal for each block to a resolution of the first image signals. The third image signals are subtracted from the first image signals.