Image pickup control method and apparatus

An image pickup control apparatus and method for controlling an image pickup device to capture an image of a scene in a condition set by a user are provided. The image pickup control method activates an image pickup unit, sets reference parameters to be compared with current parameters obtained from a preview image input through the image pickup unit for determining whether the preview image satisfies conditions defined by the reference parameters, determines whether a similarity between the current parameters and the reference parameters is within a tolerance range and controls the image pickup unit to capture the image when the similarity is within the tolerance range. Accordingly, a user is able to set the conditions under which an image is to be captured.