PURPOSE: To obtain a high-displacement, compact zoom lens whose aberrations are compensated excellently by providing the 1stWthe 3rd lens groups with a negative, a positive, and a positive refracting power successively from an object side, and specifying their condition.

CONSTITUTION: This zoom lens consists of the 1st lens group with the negative refracting power, the 2nd lens group with the positive refracting power, and the 3rd lens group successively from the object side. The 1st and the 2nd lens groups are moved on an optical axis for zooming, and the 3rd lens group includes at least a lens 31 having a negative refracting power and a lens 32 having a positive refracting power. Then, an inequality holds, where fII is the focal length of the 3rd lens group and fw is the focal length of the whole lens system on the wide-angle side.