An embodiment of this invention provides a zoom lens, which primarily comprises, in order from an object side to an image-forming side, a first lens group having negative refractive power; a second lens group having positive refractive power; and a third lens group having positive refractive power. The second lens group includes a plurality lenses in which the refractive index of the lens nearest to the object side is NDo, the refractive index of the lens nearest to the image-forming side is NDi, and NDo and NDi satisfy: NDi−NDo>0.1.