In a release that they’ve hyped for weeks now, Olympus finally pulled the covers off their first Micro Four-Thirds format camera, the E-P1.

Good product photography - sure looks dainty doesn't it?

For those of you not already in the know, Micro Four-Thirds is a new interchangeable lens system developed by Olympus and Panasonic which is the first mirror-less digital camera system to feature interchangeable lenses.  The removal of the mirror (and associated prism and optical viewfinder) and the exclusive usage of live view for image preview enables a drastic size reduction for both cameras and lenses, and as you can see here, the new Olympus E-P1 is tiny tiny tiny.

How tiny?  The exact specs on the E-P1 are 121 x 70 x 35mm (4.7 x 2.8 x 1.4 in) and 335 g (11.8 oz) – body only, with no batteries – which firmly plants it in compact camera category.  Of course, you’ll need to attach a lens at some point before shooting, which will add some bulk, but as of now the E-P1 indisputably offers the most compact interchangeable lens solution.

The following is a run-down of things you might have already picked up from other news sources or blogs. The real interesting stuff is the size and equivalent aperture/focal length comparison, at Size Comparison.

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Meaningful content is coming soon, but today’s the start of Photokina, a semi-annual trade show for the photographic and imaging industries where camera makers debut their new products. It’s day 1 and we’ve already got a slew of interesting announcements so far:

Nikon 50mm f/1.4G AF-S lens

Nikon 50mm f/1.4

Press release

Nikon users (and particularly all those D40/60 owners) have been waiting for this one for a long time, and it’s finally here: a (semi) affordable large aperture prime lens with a sonic motor that will focus with decent speed (or focus at all).  Previously Nikon users have had to deal with a slew of ancient lenses from the screw-driven era of autofocus – they weren’t really fast enough for fast action, didn’t even autofocus with the newer D40/60 bodies, and on top of that the optics really didn’t compare to more modern designs like Canon’s 50mm f/1.4 or Sigma’s monster 50mm f/1.4.

Nikon is promising a “newly developed optical system” with this one, so there’s at least the potential for it to perform much better than the current 50 f/1.4, and given how old the optical design is on that, it should.  Whether it stacks up with Sigma’s 50mm f/1.4 is the big question – initial pricing seems to be $440, which would undercut the Sigma’s current $500 price.  Given that it’ll be the “brand name” Nikon, it will sell bucketloads, and for a lower price and much more compact size (73.5mm diameter, 54mm length, 280g vs. 84.5mm, 68.2 mm, 520g on the Sigma) would be the more appealing option anyway for most users who aren’t obsessed with having the absolutely top-flight image quality.

More on the Nikon 50 1.4, Olympus Micro Four-Thirds mockup, Panasonic G1, Leica S2 MF dSLR, and Samsung HZ1 compact ultrazoom.

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