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If the burden of carrying the world’s lightest interchangeable lens Micro Four Thirds camera is still wearing too heavily on your shoulder, take heart: Olympus has unveiled a new and lighter version of the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL1s. The secret to the weight loss: a new lens, the M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II that keeps the combined camera/lens weight to just 454g (16.0143 oz) with battery and SDCH card. That breaks down to a weight of just 112g for the lens and 342g for the body.

The new lens, says Olympus, is also optimized for video shooting. Most other features of the 12.3 megapixel camera are the same as the E-PL1, but there are a few slight updates including a boost in top ISO speed from 3200 to 6400 and a new BLS-5 Lithium-ion battery. It’s available in red, black or white. The intro is Japan-only for now, where the camera/lens kit is expected to go on sale December 4, 2010.

Of course, this is not to say that Olympus will claim the title to world’s lightest camera system without a battle. Panasonic was billing the DMC-GF2-now reduced in size by 19-percent and weight by 7-percent (compared with the predecessor DMC-GF1) as the world’s “smallest-lightest camera system.” Body only: 265 grams. But that was as of November 4, 2010…before the new Olympus diet results were in.

Official Japanese press release (translated by Google)