Patent ID: 6844986

Claim:
A zoom lens comprising, in order from an object side to an image side: a first lens unit of a negative optical power, said first lens unit being a lens unit disposed at a position closest to the object side in the zoom lens; a second lens unit of a positive optical power, said second lens unit being a lens unit disposed at a position following the first lens unit in order from the object side, said second lens unit having an aspherical lens element; and a third lens unit of a positive optical power, said third lens unit being a lens unit disposed at a position following the second lens unit in order from the object side, said third lens unit having a cemented lens formed by cementing a positive lens element to a negative lens element and moving along an optical axis for zooming, wherein a space between said first and second lens units decreases, and a space between said second lens unit and said third lens unit increases in zooming from a wide angle end to a telephoto end, and letting NLi be the number of lens elements constituting an ith lens it, a condition defined by NL 3 <NL 2 ≦NL 1 is satisfied.