To evaluate precisely the dynamic characteristics of the resonator of a micro-machined vibratory gyroscope during its design process, an optical method for measuring the dynamic characteristics of a micro-resonator is proposed. In the proposed method, a digital image correlation technique is used to calculate the correlation coefficients among the temporal series images of the micro-resonator captured using a high\|speed video camera in order to acquire the displacement, velocity and accelerator curves of the micro-resonator in the atmosphere, and then the natural frequency and the quality factor of the micro-resonator is obtained accordingly. The proposed approach has a high precision since the vibrating displacement is measured at submicrometer resolution. The natural frequency and the quality factor in atmosphere for the driving mode of the tested gyroscope are measured as 2061.67 Hz and 66.67 respectively. The present method may provide an accurate and effective measurement tool for the evaluation of the dynamic characteristics of a micro-machined vibratory gyroscope.