Patent 7119968 was granted and assigned to Pentax on October, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An AF control apparatus includes a plurality of movable lens groups, each of which is movable along an optical axis for performing focusing independently, and a driving system for moving each of the movable lens groups. A moving path of each of the movable lens groups during an autofocusing operation is defined so that a ratio of moving distances of the each of the movable lens groups is constant over an entire zoom range.