The Pen E-P5 has “designed with breakthrough technology and incredible performance advancements,” Olympus says, including a shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second.

That speed is thanks to a mechanical shutter — the first in a “compact system camera,” Olympus adds. Also, the autofocus system features Super Spot AF, which the company says accurately brings into focus even extremely small subjects. “Simply select an area on your subject where pin-point accurate AF is required and the E-P5 can auto-focus on that area, offering even more precision than phase-difference autofocus systems.”

The 16-megapixel Micro Four Thirds-format camera has a tilting 3-inch display, and 5-Axis image stabilization. Its Olympus’ first ILC camera with built-in WiFi for easier image sharing, and for using a smart phone as a remote control and viewfinder.

The E-P5 is $1,000 for the camera body, or $1500 with a 17mm f1.8 lens.

More information is here.

When I make a print, it’s a big one — poster-sized. And that means, generally speaking, an image of something large: a skyscraper, a giant Sequoia, a waterfall… And the problem there is getting all that into one exposure requires either distance, or a very wide angle lens.

Or… you can forgo the “one exposure” part and take multiple shots, assuming your subject isn’t moving. Many new cameras have this feature built in: pan across a scene and they snap dozens exposures that are all-but instantly combined into a wide panorama.

But when you want to get in a whole scene, up and down and all around, instead of just a pan — and, when for that large print you want to combine multiple full-resolution images — then we’re talking complicated work in Photoshop, or dedicated panorama programs…

Or we’re talking simple apps like PhotoStitcher.

The $20 software for Mac or Windows from TeoreX combines multiple overlapping pictures into single large image. It “aligns several shots taken from the same point both vertically and horizontally to produce a non­distorted image of the whole panorama,” the company says. “PhotoStitcher automatically addresses the entire scope of technical issues like proper alignment of images next to each other, distortion compensation, and varying perspective. The program supports creation of horizontal, vertical and combined panoramic photos without any user input, 100 percent automatically.”

No need to envy Instagram-using mobile photographers: with the latest effects app from Alien Skin Software, you can filter with the best of them — or simulate darkroom techniques, or Kodachrome, Polaroid and Panatomic-X films.

Exposure 5 “brings all the creative tools of traditional film photography to the world of digital,” the company says “such as the look of discontinued films, darkroom tricks, and trendy lo-fi camera quirks.”

The $200 software supplies hundreds of preset effects that can be applied with a single mouse-click, “helping photographers achieve their desired look quickly,” Alien Skin adds. “It’s now much easier and faster for photographers of all levels to find the right look for their photographs.”