Patent 7746566 was granted and assigned to Olympus Group on June, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An observation optical system has a negative lens unit including a cemented lens, arranged at the most object-side position; an annular reflecting mirror placed on the image side of the negative lens unit, with a reflecting surface facing the image side; and an imaging lens unit arranged on the image side of the negative lens unit and the annular reflecting mirror.