Patent 7505210 was granted and assigned to Sony on March, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A zoom lens has good optical performance, is compact, and has a high magnifying power, and is suitable for use in a video camera, a digital still camera, a cellular phone, or the like, and an image pickup apparatus employs the zoom lens. The zoom lens includes a first lens group fixed upon zooming and having a positive refractive power, a second lens group having a negative refractive power, a third lens group having a positive refractive power, a fourth lens group having a negative refractive power, and a fifth lens group having a positive refractive power, which are successively arranged in the order from the object side. At least the second lens group and the fourth lens group are moved for zooming.