Patent ID: 7674050

Claim:
A retractable lens barrel including an image capturing optical system, comprising: a first lens unit for capturing an image of a subject; a light-amount control member to control an amount of light which comes from the subject and passes through the image capturing optical system; a second lens unit including at least two lens units which sandwich the light-amount control member on an optical axis; a second lens unit frame which supports the at least two lens units included in the second lens unit; and a drive mechanism to move the second lens unit frame; wherein the first lens unit and the second lens unit are adapted to change a distance between the first lens unit and the second lens unit when a zooming function is conducted while maintaining a mutual positional relationship of the at least two lens units and the light-amount control member; wherein when the retractable lens barrel is extended for image capturing, the first lens unit and the second lens unit exist on the optical axis, while the light-amount control member is sandwiched between the two lens units of the second lens unit on the optical axis, and wherein when the lens barrel is retracted, the at least two lens units are shifted together in same direction out of the optical axis by the drive mechanism while maintaining a mutual positional relationship of the at least two lens units.