Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Olympus Imaging Corporation

Olympus Corporation

Kazuhito Hayakawa

Takayoshi Togino

Kenji Ono

Masato Katayose

Kimihiko Nishioka

Hisashi Oode

Tetsuhide Takeyama

Toshiyuki Nagaoka

Tetsuo Nagata

Koichi Takahashi

Kazuya Nishimura

Hisashi Goto

Yuji Kamo

Shigeru Kato

Kenji Murakami

Kazunari Tokuda

Hideyuki Nagaoka

Katsumi Motohashi

A zoom lens includes, in order from the object side to the image side, a first lens unit having a negative refractive power, a second lens unit having a positive refractive power, and a third lens unit including a lens. The distance between the first lens unit and the second lens unit is smaller at the telephoto end than at the wide angle end, and the distance between the second lens unit and the third lens unit changes during zooming from the wide angle end to the telephoto end. The first lens unit consists, in order from the object side, of a front sub lens unit having a negative refractive power, an optical path bending member, and a rear sub lens unit having a positive refractive power. The front sub lens unit includes a biconcave single lens, and the rear sub lens unit includes one or two single lenses.

Zoom lens having optical path bending member and image pickup apparatus equipped with same

An electronic image pickup apparatus includes a plurality of lens units, an image forming optical system, and an image pickup element. The image forming optical system includes at least a lens unit nearest to object side which is disposed nearest to an object side, an aperture stop which is disposed on an image side than the lens unit nearest to object side, and an image-side lens unit which is disposed on the image side than the aperture stop. The lens unit nearest to object side includes a lens having a mark formed on an effective area of a lens surface thereof. At least any one of the lens in the image forming optical system is held such that, a shifting or a tilting of the lens can be adjusted. The electronic image pickup apparatus further includes a correction parameter storage section which stores correction parameters for correcting an unevenness of brightness due to the mark, and a signal processing section which corrects the unevenness of brightness due to the mark of which, an image has been picked up by the image pickup element, based on the correction parameter stored in the correction parameter storage section.

Electronic image pickup apparatus including an image forming optical system having a mark

A zoom lens with a bent optical path comprising, in order from the object side to the image side, a first lens unit having a positive refractive power, a second lens unit having a negative refractive power, and a rear lens unit group having a positive refractive power as a whole. The first lens unit includes a reflecting member. The rear lens unit group includes three lens unit including, in order from the object side to the image side, a third lens unit having a positive refractive power, a fourth lens unit having a negative refractive power, and a fifth lens unit having a positive refractive power. The distances between the lens units change during zooming from the wide angle end to the telephoto end. The zoom lens satisfies the predetermined conditional expressions.

Zoom lens with bent optical path and image pickup apparatus using the same

A zoom lens includes, in order from the object side to the image side, a first lens unit having a positive refracting power and including a reflecting member having a reflecting surface, a second lens unit having a negative refracting power, a rear lens unit group having a positive refracting power as a whole and including at least three lens units, which includes in order from the object side, a third lens unit, a fourth lens unit, and a fifth lens unit. An aperture stop is provided between the second lens unit and the fourth lens unit. During zooming from the wide angle end to the telephoto end, the first lens unit is kept stationary, the second lens unit is located closer to the image side at the telephoto end than at the wide angle end, and the distances between the lens units change. The first lens unit includes, in order from the object side, a negative lens component, the reflecting member, and a rear sub-lens unit including a first positive lens element and a second positive lens element. The second lens unit includes a plurality of lens elements including a negative lens element. The zoom lens satisfies certain conditions.

Zoom lens system for image pickup apparatus

An optical apparatus includes a variable optical-property element, a driving circuit driving the variable optical-property element, and an image sensor. In order to compensate a change of an imaging state caused by at least one factor of temperature, humidity, a manufacturing error, a change of an object distance, and a zoom state, photographing is performed while referring to a look-up table to change driving information provided to the variable optical-property element, and the driving information that the high-frequency component of a photographed image is practically maximized is assumed so that the variable optical-property element is driven by the driving information to perform photographing.

Optical apparatus provided with variable mirror

The design method of the optical system according to the present invention comprises a step (S) for setting an optical parameter in a design state in which a production error has not been taken into consideration, a step (S) for making/renewing a production state where an optical parameter in a production state is made by adding the production error to the optical parameter in the design state, or the production error of the optical parameter in an existing production state is renewed, a step (S) for making an evaluation function which makes the evaluation function and a step (S) for performing optimization which determines an optimal optical parameter by optimizing the evaluation function.

Method of designing optical system

The invention provides an optical apparatus enabling diopter adjustment, etc. to be achieved using, for instance, a reflection type variable-optical property optical element or a variable-optical property mirror but without recourse to any mechanical moving part. The variable-optical property mirrorcomprises an aluminum-coated thin filmand a plurality of electrodes. Via variable resistorsand a power source switcha power sourceis connected between the thin filmand the electrodes, so that the resistance values of the variable resistorscan be controlled by an operating unit. The shape of the thin filmas a reflecting surface is controlled by changing the resistance value of each variable resistorin response to a signal from the operating unitin such a manner that the imaging capability of the variable mirror is optimized.

Optical apparatus

The invention provides an optical apparatus enabling diopter adjustment, etc. to be achieved using, for instance, a reflection type variable-optical property optical element or a variable-optical property mirror but without recourse to any mechanical moving part. The variable-optical property mirror comprises an aluminum-coated thin film and a plurality of electrodes Via variable resistors and a power source switch a power source is connected between the thin film and the electrodes so that the resistance values of the variable resistors can be controlled by an operating unit The shape of the thin film as a reflecting surface is controlled by changing the resistance value of each variable resistor in response to a signal from the operating unit in such a manner that the imaging capability of the variable mirror is optimized.

A variable mirror that is readily formable and can be readily and precisely changed into various configurations as desired is provided. The variable mirror includes a mirror body formed of an elastic or flexible material and having one surface functioning as a reflecting surface. The mirror body is capable of changing the reflecting surface configuration. The rigidity of the mirror body varies in a direction parallel to the one surface.

Variable mirror, optical apparatus and decentered optical system which include variable mirror, variable-optical characteristic optical element or combination thereof

A compact, lightweight and bright image display apparatus which uses a non-telecentric optical system, or a decentered optical system and a reflection-type image display device, such as a reflection-type LCD, to have high optical performance. The image display apparatus comprises an image display device, and an ocular optical system which leads an image formed by the image display device to an eye point of an observer without forming an intermediate image so that the image can be observed as a virtual image. The ocular optical system comprises a decentered optical system having at least one decentered back-coated reflecting surface. The image display device is a reflection-type image display device which displays an image by reflection of illumination light. An illumination means for forming the illumination light is arranged outside an optical path between the reflection-type image display device and the eye point of the observer.

Image display apparatus

An optical system for an ocular optical system or a projection optical system, in which a plurality of illuminating light sources of different colors can be placed in a side-by-side relation to each other, and which makes it possible to reduce the overall size and weight of an apparatus such as a head-mounted image display apparatus or a color film projection apparatus. The optical system has an image-forming optical system (,) that projects a real image or virtual image of an object placed in an image plane (,). The image-forming optical system (,) has an entrance pupil (,) at a position on the side of the image plane (,) remote from the image-forming optical system. An exit pupil (,) is located in a conjugate relation to the entrance pupil (,) with respect to the image-forming optical system (,). A chromatic aberration producing device (,) is provided between the entrance pupil (,) and the exit pupil (,). Even if a plurality of illuminating light sources of different colors are placed in a side-by-side relation to each other on the entrance pupil (,), rays from the different light sources can pass the exit pupil (,), being superimposed on one another, without chromatic aberration.

An image-forming optical system including a compact and high-performance prism optical system. The image-forming optical system has a prism member formed from a medium having a refractive index larger than 1. The prism member has a first transmitting surface, first to third reflecting surfaces, and a second transmitting surface. The second and third reflecting surfaces are arranged so that the path of the axial principal ray in the prism is folded in a triangular shape, and the axial principal ray incident on the second reflecting surface and the axial principal ray reflected from the third reflecting surface form intersecting optical paths. At least one of the first to third reflecting surfaces has a curved surface configuration that gives a power to a light beam. The curved surface configuration has a rotationally asymmetric surface configuration that corrects aberrations due to decentration.

Image-forming optical system

An optical system for an ocular optical system or a projection optical system, in which a plurality of illuminating light sources of different colors can be placed in a side-by-side relation to each other, and which makes it possible to reduce the overall size and weight of an apparatus such as a head-mounted image display apparatus or a color film projection apparatus. The optical system has an image-forming optical system (,) that projects a real image or virtual image of an object placed in an image plane (,). The image-forming optical system (,) has an entrance pupil (,) at a position on the side of the image plane (,) remote from the image-forming optical system. An exit pupil (,) is located in a conjugate relation to the entrance pupil (,) with respect to the image-forming optical system (,). A chromatic aberration producing device (,) is provided between the entrance pupil (,) and the exit pupil (,). Even if a plurality of illuminating light sources of different colors are placed in a side-by-side relation to each other on the entrance pupil (,), rays from the different light sources can pass the exit pupil; (,), being superimposed on one another, without chromatic aberration.

An optical system for an ocular optical system or a projection optical system, in which a plurality of illuminating light sources of different colors can be placed in a side-by-side relation to each other, and which makes it possible to reduce the overall size and weight of an apparatus such as a head-mounted image display apparatus or a color film projection apparatus. The optical system has an image-forming optical system (1) that projects a real image or virtual image of an object placed in an image plane (3). The image-forming optical system (1) has an entrance pupil (5) at a position on the side of the image plane (3) remote from the image-forming optical system. An exit pupil (4) is located in a conjugate relation to the entrance pupil (5) with respect to the image-forming optical system (1). A chromatic aberration producing device (6) is provided between the entrance pupil (5) and the exit pupil (4). Even if a plurality of illuminating light sources of different colors are placed in a side-by-side relation to each other on the entrance pupil (5), rays from the different light sources can pass the exit pupil (4), being superimposed on one another, without chromatic aberration.

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Hachioji, Japan

Kazuhito Hayakawa