Patent ID: 7068447

Claim:
A pickup lens that takes in light coming from the side of a subject and sends out the light to the side of an image to form a subject image, whose optical power is variable, comprising: a first lens group being a meniscus lens having negative power, which is fixed when varying optical power; a second lens group having positive power, which is moved over a distance along the optical axis from the image side or the wide-angle end to the subject side or the telephoto end when varying optical power; and a third lens group having negative power, which is moved along the optical axis when varying optical power, the third lens group being the closest lens group to the image side; wherein the first lens group, the second lens group, and third lens group are arranged in this order from the subject side to the image side, and a diaphragm, which is moved together with the second lens group, is arranged between the first lens group and the second lens group or between the second lens group and third lens group.