Patent ID: 7969661

Claim:
A wide angle zoom lens, comprising, from an object side in the following order: a first lens group that has a negative refractive power; a second lens group that has a positive refractive power; and a third lens group, wherein the total number of lens groups in the wide angle zoom lens is three; the first and second lens groups move while the third lens group remains fixed when variable magnification is carried out from a wide angle end to a telephoto end, so that an air space between the first lens group and the second lens group becomes narrow and that a space between the second lens group and the third lens group becomes wide; the first and second lens groups each include at least positive and negative lenses; the third lens group includes one meniscus lens whose convex surface faces an image surface, wherein the total number of lens in the third lens group is one; and the following conditional expressions (1) and (2) are satisfied: 1.4 ≦|f 1|/ fw≦ 1.8 (1); and 1.7 ≦f 2/ fw≦ 2.1 (2) where f1 is a focal length of the first lens group of the wide angle zoom lens; f2 is a focal length of the second lens group of the wide angle zoom lens; and fw is a focal length of the entire system at the wide angle end of the wide angle zoom lens.