An image pickup device (100) wherein a target area, on which an exposure control is based, is accurately detected to perform the exposure control most favorably to the target. The image pickup device (100) comprises a feature detecting unit (111) that detects, based on the contour of the target, a target candidate from a picked-up image (S1); a block voting unit (112) that votes those ones of a plurality of blocks to which the target detected by the feature detecting unit (111) belong, the plurality of blocks being obtained by dividing the area of the picked-up image into the plurality of blocks; a vote compiling unit (114) that adds vote results (S3) together on a block-by-block basis over a plurality of frames, thereby compiling the vote results (S3); a significance determining unit (115) that select, based on a compilation result (S4), blocks to be used for controlling the exposure; and a control unit (116) that controls the exposure of an image pickup unit (101) based on the brightness of the blocks selected by the significance determining unit (115).