Preparation steps are taken before a substrate with components is inspected and a whole image of a standard substrate is prepared preliminarily and inspection areas are determined for target portions to be inspected on this whole image. At the time of the inspection, a camera is positioned corresponding to a target portion to obtain a target image and an area corresponding to the target image is extracted from the whole image and displacement values of this area are calculated relative to the target image. The setting position of the inspection area is corrected by the calculated displacement values and an inspection area is set on the target image based on the corrected coordinates.