1. An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup device; a storage means for previously storing the locations of fault pixels of the image pickup device; an edge detection means for detecting edges in image from image pickup signals outputted from said image pickup device; a fault pixel detection means for detecting fault pixels of the image pickup device from a frame or a region in frame having a value of edges less than a predetermined value on the basis of an output from the edge detection means; and a defect correction means for obtaining locations of fault pixels by adaptively switching between said fault pixel detection means and the storage means based on an output from said edge detection means so as to correct image pickup signals corresponding to the obtained locations of the fault pixels.