An imaging optical system, an imaging device, and a digital apparatus have a four lens construction with positive, negative, positive, and negative refractive powers. A surface position at the maximum effective diameter of the second lens element is located on the object side than a surface vertex thereof. The fourth lens element has an inflection point at a position other than the intersection of the optical axis and the fourth lens element. The optical system satisfies the following conditions.0.7<f1 / f<5−0.8<(RS1+RS2) / (RS1−RS2)<3−3<(RS3+RS4) / (RS3−RS4)<20.03<d2 / TL<0.22W>72ν4>50,and0.55<Y / TL<0.8where f1 is a focal length of the first lens element, f is a focal length of the entire optical system, RS1, RS3, RS2, RS4 are curvature radii of the object-side surface and the image-side surface of the first and second lens elements, d2 is an optical axis distance between the first and second lens elements, TL is a total length of the entire optical system, W is a maximum half angle of view, ν4 is an Abbe number of the fourth lens element, and Y is a maximum image height.