Provided is an apparatus and method for detecting a key point using a high-order Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) kernel. The high-order LoG kernel is generated based on an LoG operator which is calculated by sequentially differentiating an LoG operator with respect to x and y of an image. A scale space is generated based on the high-order LoG kernel and the key point is detected by comparing a current pixel in the scale space to pixels adjacent to the current pixel.