Patent 7471471 was granted and assigned to Fujinon on December, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A refractive optical unit is provided and has a regulator mechanism that can easily align between a lens of a lens group to be fixed in a housing and a lens of a lens group freely moving along the optical axis at their lens centers, by operation. In a lens holder for the lens group to be fixed in the housing, an operation piece is provided that protrudes outward through an opening of the housing. Furthermore, an elongate hole is provided in a position opposite to the operation piece with reference to a third lens group as viewed from the operation piece side. A guide rod is inserted through the elongate hole so that the lens holder can be parallel moved along the lengthwise of the elongate hole or rotated about the guide rod on a plane orthogonal to the optical axis, thereby aligning a lens of the lens group with a lens of another lens group at its centers.