The Olympus PEN F, launched in 1963, was a very advanced camera for its time. Now, for the F's 50th anniversary, Olympus is paying homage to its design with its new flagship model in the digital PEN line of mirrorless cameras, the E-P5.

You can instantly feel the retro styling when you look at the E-P5. The slightly sloped and curve top is exactly the same as the PEN F, and there are a few other callbacks — such as the big, round button to the right of the lens.

The silver-and-black color evokes classic cameras, too, although that styling is fairly common among cameras from various brands (the new PEN is also available in plan black and white/tan).

Any throwbacks are purely in appearance, though, as the new PEN is loaded with digital technology to lead Olympus' line of Micro Four-Thirds cameras. It's the first Olympus camera to include built-in Wi-Fi, letting users pair the camera with an accompanying app.

With the app, the user can control camera functions as well as import pics into the phone's camera roll for easy sharing. It can also use the phone's GPS for more accurate geotagging.

Olympus says the E-P5 is the first compact camera to with a mechanical shutter that can use a shutter speed of 1/8,000 of a second. The built-in flash is said to have improved sync speed, too, which might come in handy for backlit shots.

The autofocus system is based on the Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, which can focus even on extremely small subjects. Also borrowed from the E-M5: five-axis image stabilization, which will correct for your shaky hands whether your shooting stills or video.

You can see in the photos the multiple dials, which are user-customizable. Want the front one to adjust ISO while the rear one handles shutter speed or white balance? Go ahead — whatever your skill level, you're the expert at how you like things.

Photo Story is a feature that lets you take pics of the same scene or event and combine them into one image, sort of like those composites that are all over the place on Instagram. There's also a Time Lapse Movie mode that will automatically create a video of images taken in time lapse mode — which can be set to take individual shots as far apart as a day — so you can create videos like these easily.

The camera also starts up in very fast time: less then half a second.

I got hands-on time with the E-P5 and came away really liking its abilities. I'm not a fan of the multiple dials — I favor the move toward touchscreens — but if retro design is your thing, the feature package of the E-P5 will keep you firmly in the present.

The E-P5 will be available in May for $999.99 body only, or $1,449.99 when paired with a 17mm/f1.8 kit lens.