The present invention discloses an object detection apparatus and method. A feature extracting section of the present invention comprises: a feature point extracting section, for extracting a combination of predetermined feature point pairs from an image; a pixel value obtaining section, for obtaining a pixel value of each feature point in the combination of feature point pairs; a feature point comparing section, for comparing, in accordance with the pixel values obtained by the pixel value obtaining section, two feature points in each feature point pair to obtain a logical value; and an feature obtaining section, for determining the feature of the image in accordance with the logical value.