Patent ID: 8587876

Claim:
A zoom lens comprising, in order from the object side to the image side: a first lens unit having a negative refractive power; a second lens unit having a positive refractive power; and a third lens unit comprising a lens, wherein the distance between the first lens unit and the second lens unit is smaller at the telephoto end than at the wide angle end, the distance between the second lens unit and the third lens unit changes during zooming from the wide angle end to the telephoto end, the first lens unit consists, in order from the object side, of a front sub lens unit having a negative refractive power, an optical path bending member, and a rear sub lens unit having a positive refractive power, the front sub lens unit comprises a biconcave single lens, the rear sub lens unit comprises a positive single lens, the total number of lenses in the front sub lens unit is one, the total number of lenses in the rear sub lens unit is two or less, the total number of positive lenses in the rear sub lens unit is one, and the zoom lens satisfies the following conditional expressions (1) to (4): −4< f 1G /f T <−0.01 (1), 1.3<|β 2T /β 2W |<30 (2), 0.1 <f 1FN /f 1G <10 (3), −16 <f 1RP /f 1G <−1.2 (4), where f 1G is the focal length of the first lens unit, f T is the focal length of the entire zoom lens system at the telephoto end, β 2T is the lateral magnification of the second lens unit at the telephoto end, β 2w is the lateral magnification of the second lens unit at the wide angle end, f 1FN is the focal length of the biconcave single lens in the front sub lens unit, and f 1RP is the focal length of the positive lens in the rear sub lens unit.