Lighting apparatus and illuminating fixture with the same

A control circuit selects a first control mode in which a switching element is turned on/off so as to flow current in an inductor in a continuous mode by which the current flows in the inductor without a sleep period, thereby fully lighting a light source load. The control circuit selects one of a second control mode in which a turn-on time of the switching element is changed and a third control mode in which an oscillating frequency is changed according to an interval, to which the designated dimming ratio corresponds, to light the light source load. An output capacitor connected between output terminals of a step-down chopper circuit smoothes a pulsation component of an output current supplied to the light source load and has capacity set so that a ripple ratio of the output current is less than 0.5 at the full lighting of the light source load.