Patent ID: 7437064

Claim:
A drive mechanism for a camera comprising: a movable member which is located behind a photographing lens and which is linearly movable along an optical axis of the photographing lens, said movable member supporting an image pickup device; an auto-focus coil secured to one of the movable member and an immovable member of the camera; a magnetic force generating device which is secured to the other of said movable member and said immovable member, so as to linearly move the movable member in the optical axis direction relative to said immovable member by applying a magnetic field upon said auto-focus coil; and a controller which controls the direction of electric current flowing in the auto-focus coil so that image light transmitted through the photographing lens is converged onto an image pickup surface of said image pickup device, wherein said auto-focus coil is a planar coil which is wound on a plane parallel with the optical axis.