Patent ID: 7436599

Claim:
An electronic image pickup apparatus, comprising: an optical path-bending zoom optical system and an electronic image pickup device, said optical path-bending zoom optical system comprising: at least one negative lens group, at least one positive lens group that moves only toward an object side of said optical path-bending zoom optical system for zooming from a wide-angle end to a telephoto end of said optical path-bending zoom optical system, a final lens group located on an image side with respect to said positive lens group and nearest to an image plane side in said optical path-bending zoom optical system, and only one reflecting optical element for bending an optical path, which element has a fixed shape and is located on said object side with respect to all lens groups movable during zooming, wherein only one lens group is disposed on an object side with respect to said at least one positive lens group that moves only toward the object side of said optical path-bending zoom optical system, and wherein said only one lens group is a negative lens group of said at least one negative lens group which is disposed on a most object side of said optical path-bending zoom optical system, and wherein said electronic image pickup device is disposed on said image side of said optical path-bending zoom optical system.