Patent ID: 7636200

Claim:
A projector, comprising: a lighting device having a light source device which emits source light, first and second lens arrays which divides the source light emitted from the light source device into a plurality of partial lights, and a superimposing lens which has positive refractive power and supplies the partial lights emitted from the first and second lens arrays to a target illumination area such that the partial lights can be superimposed on the illumination area; a color separation and light guide system having a first color separating mirror which separates illumination light emitted from the lighting device into first color light and other color light, a second color separating mirror which separates second color light and third color light contained in the other color light, and a bending mirror which further reflects the first color light reflected by the first color separation mirror to bend the optical path of the first color light; first through third liquid crystal light valves each of which modulates corresponding one of the first through third color lights separated by the color separation and light guide system according to image information; a light combining system which combines image lights in respective colors modulated by the first through third liquid crystal light valves; and a projection system which projects the combined image light produced by the light combining system, wherein an optical path extending from the superimposing lens to the first liquid crystal light valve has only a combining lens disposed in a first section between the first color separating mirror and the bending mirror, wherein an optical path extending from the superimposing lens to the second liquid crystal light valve has only a combining lens disposed in a second section between the first color separating mirror and the second color separating mirror, and wherein the combining lens disposed in the first section is a positive single lens located at a position in the range from (¼)L to (¾)L from the final end surface of the superimposing lens assuming that the distance between the final end surface of the superimposing lens and the light modulation surface of the first liquid crystal light valve is L.