Rating: 
Summary: Buy a "Pro" Memory Stick
Review: In short;
Great photos
Take total control or let the camera do the thinking
A great camera, you will be the envy of your friends, especially if you get a dye-sub printer! (DPP EX5)Only Two bad things;
1. Electronic View Finder grainy
2. Supplied Memory Stick (32MB)! It will take a while to write a high res pic to the stick and only take 2 or 3 pics at highest resolution, 12 highest res JPEG. Get a larger Pro model Mem stick!
Rating:
Summary: The best of all possible worlds...
Review: Having been an owner of the Sony F505V, the upgrade to the F717 was a natural progression. As one gets more aquainted with digital photography, one will certainly come to appreciate MORE megapixels! I've been eyeing a 14mp camera, but it's [price] ... so, the Sony is far better suited to my preferred "sensible" price:value ratio. I started life as a true-blue "film" photographer. I tried a first generation digital camera (it was much less than 1 mp), and although it was fun... it just wasn't ready for prime time. Later, I jumped for the Kodak DC 120 (1mp)... this was a far better camera, but not so good for real photography work. Then, came the Sony F505V (3.3MP)... it was true love! However, as my own appreciation for the digital medium grew, I soon found that it was not quite suitable for the photo purist that I had been. Then, came the F717!!! The F717 is the most film-like of any digital I've ever used. The features are many... but being Sony, the costs tend to be high. One can take complete control over exposure, time, or let the camera maximize things for you automatically. One fun feature is the ability to play back a slide show to a TV/VCR (with the supplied cable)...this is particularly nifty when shooting family gatherings! :-) The pivot body style makes it far more versatile than comperable competitor cameras (quite suitable for getting MORE angles on a subject). Battery life is great, picture quality is outstanding, the additional modes for night and special FX make it even better. Rumor has it that if one purchases/locates an appropriate infrared filter and uses the "night shot" during the day, that one can get a slight x-ray effect in the photos. I have yet to try this, but I'm intrigued by the possibilty. The shape itself can be a burden if one looks to store it in a traditional camera bag (might as well break down and get one of the Sony bags!) The ONLY real drawback that I've experienced with the camera is that one will want at LEAST 128mb memory sticks to use with this camera (it comes with a 32mb, which is a joke). The Lexar memory sticks tend to be more cost effective, but if you're out and about and decide to do video (yes, it does decent video too...although it is NOT a video camera)... doing video will fill up your precious memory sticks REALLY fast! Sony has since announced a 1gb memory stick, but the current price is close to the cost of the camera... Sorry, I'll just buy more 128mb Lexar's until the price comes down! :) Although I'm a big fan of Nikon, Olympus and such in the film world, Sony rules the day in the 5mp digital world. Would I buy again? In a heart beat! PS- Don't look for any real "support" from Sony. Do a Google search and find some newsgroups/user groups out there. However, the lack of support is not a Sony exclusive, and it does seem to be the nature of the marketplace (seems everyone has had to make budget cuts..."support" is just another victim).
Rating: 
Summary: Great features but negated by poor quality and service
Review: I bought this camera to take pictures of our newborn son who is due very soon. The camera was great in the beginning. My wife loved taking pictures under full automatic mode and I loved the ability to change shutter exposure, ISO speed, and other 'semi-pro' features. The picture quality was excellent. Some people do not like how large the camera is but I far prefer having all features with their own button rather than the menus many other cameras have. When it is dark it is far easier to feel for a button than traverse a menu.
After a little over a week I noticed that the pictures were becoming more and more pixelated. At first I thought I must have pushed the manual controls too far because it happened most often on pictures that were out of focus but then I noticed it happening on all pictures. It eventually became so bad within a few days that I could not take pictures with it any more.
I contacted Sony service and they had me send the camera back to them. They sent it back not only with the problem unfixed, but with the viewfinder now broken. My wife called in tears that we would not have the camera for the birth of our son and they promised to rectify it immediately, promising us a UPS tag to send it back to them within the next day or two. It took a week and a half to get to us. I called and asked for a replacement camera because I have no confidence in their service and they said that is impossible and seemed not to care.
If you look around on the web you will find similar problems about Sony service and this camera.
I used to buy everything Sony due to their quality but it is now evident that is no longer the case.
Rating:
Summary: A camera worth writing about.
Review: I have now used the camera for a whole of 3 months and have shot close to 1000 pictures and have bought 3 books on photography and digital photography. I had previously bought a DSC-F707 and lost it. I did not have any hesitation in picking up the successor to the DSC-F707 again! Not having been an interested photographer in the past, I think that the above fact speaks volumes for how good the camera is and how cost effective it is over film (this is true for most digital cameras) and how interested it can get you to start photographing. I can vouch for this fact because, a friend who picked up another one of these beauties is doing pretty much the same. This camera has an effective 5 Meg pixels and knows how to use them. The pictures are absolutely razor sharp. This does not mean that you cannot take soft portrait. With a lot of manual settings at your disposal you can get the picture just the way you want it. Now, the lens. Oh! What a lens. This is a lens which if various reviews and friends whose hobby is photography are to be believed would cost atleast 2 to 3 grand to get film SLR equivalents. Think about it! You get an aperture of 2.0 at a 5x zoom at full wide angle. That is a really fast lens. To go with it does extremely well in low light conditions as well! The auto focus is not the fastest but for most shots you do not even notice it. Now the controls, full aperture control (from f/2 to f/8) and full shutter control from 1/1000 (1/2000 in programmed AE mode)sec to 30 secs gives you enough freedom to capture the most unusual shots! White balance options are adequate, you get to choose between 5 auto, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, fluoroscent. If none of these are close enough, you have a one-touch white balance. But this requires that you have a white object exposed to the same light that the object you want to photograph is exposed to. Not always feasible for landscapes in tricky light conditions or for people and portraits outside or in mixed lighting. Even though to be fair, the auto does a pretty good job of calculating white balance. Auto Exposure Lock and a choice of 3 metering modes allow you to adjust exposure to any part of the photo and shoot images with consistent exposure plus the option to choose the focusing segment makes it very versatile. This is very important if you want to stitch landscapes together. Also, you have the option of either manually focussing if need be. Pretty good versatility. Other good stuff: Flash is really very good, night shot framing is very handy, battery performance, the histogram for live and review of shots, etc., Strengths:
1) Carl Ziess lens.
2) 5 meg pixels.
3) Low light photography.
4) Price - Performance ratio.
5) Flash
6) Battery life and info
7) Level of manual controls
8) Great tripod mount positioning
9) Histogram that shows exposure graphically while live or on review.
10) Compatibility with Memory stick pro media. (Upto 1G size). Weaknesses:
1) Price of the memory sticks in comparison to other digital media.
2) In camera battery charging
3) Bundled software
Rating:
Summary: versatility, power, and (too) many functions
Review: this is the opinion of a rather novice photographer who was inducted into owning this camera by its super enticing feature set/performance at a (just) lowered price! yet, if you are the super pro, probably you'll find a more powerful model in the market shortly if not some significant feature(s) missing in the current model (picture stabilization etc).
Rating:
Summary: Amazing results for its price - a winner
Review: This may be a funny-looking camera, but it is a gem of a performer. Its Zeiss lens is tack sharp, its electronics do all of the thinking for you, and the results are superb. You should get the optional lens hood, as the glass is very close to the front of the lens barrel. And if you plan to do much shooting at one time, plan to get a memory stick pro with a lot of memory (I use 4 128mb sticks, and wish I had bought a 512 mb stick instead). If you get a chance to shoot someone else's and look at your results, you'll buy your own, I guarantee. It is not as large as it looks in the picture, and it is relatively light in weight and easy to carry at your side. This camera is a winner.
Rating:
Summary: 5 megapixels and easy to use
Review: I've spent a good deal of time with my 3.2 megapixel Olympus and thought that it was a pretty good camera. That is until I bought the Sony F717. The good things...Looong battery life with fairly quick charging..... accurate autofocus, even at macro setttings...controls/menus are obvious, you don't even need the manual to figure most of it out...fast cycling...great through the lens or screen readouts and framing, a focus ring that feels like the thing is on a real camera...intuitive location of controls, after ~15 minutes of fooling with it I could shoot and never take my eyes off of the viewfinder despite changing aperture, speed, flash, macro etc frequently. The bad things...the manual is a great quick get-started guide but lacks the detail I'd like in a camera with this much potential that costs this much. The software that comes with the camera is not great, but if you spend this much on a camera you ought to use Photoshop or PictureIt any way.
Rating:
Summary: What a machine!
Review: My wife finally let me upgrade from my 707, so now we have one 717 and one 707 and go out shooting at least once a week. I love this camera, it is almost everything I hoped for as an upgrade from the 707. It is much faster than the 707, though still weak with action shots. You can nail predictable events like a bird in flight, but when wild dolphins come up to your sailboat, expect to miss two out of three shots. If you do need to shoot action, hit menu and one of the record modes is "burst 3" three rapid shots one after another, you might get lucky that way. The "A" and "S" and settings to enhance depth of field and shutter speed do not seem to give good results. Likewise, The new scene selections (twilight, landscape and portrait) seem limited, though I have had some fun with portrait when I am dealing with a messy background. However, for best results, I just leave it on the green camera icon, that seems to perform the best. One BIG problem though, the camera is only two months old and all the markings have worn off the mode dial making it hard to set up in a hurry, shame on Sony for that! The 717 shoots well in intense light situations, the beach at 1 PM is no problem, except that the light is harsh, if you are going to shoot in snow or at the beach, think about getting the lens hood and ND filter accessories. We dropped $500.00 or so on the Sony wide angle lens, that was a mistake, it weighs so much it appears to hurt the camera and like all wide angles, eats light. On the bright side, there is less distortion than I have ever seen in a WA. The 717 doesn't handle subtle transparent sky light, a muted sunset, or rainbow can be lost. I still haven't scored a double rainbow with a digital, I can see both, the cameras can only see one of them. They have moved some of the control buttons from the 707 positions; moving zoom was a mistake, it really is better to have the zoom control as the farthest out control on the lens so you can find it without taking your eyes off your subject. On the plus side the focus switch is in a deeper indent, this keeps you from switching into manual mode accidentally. The auto popup flash is really noisy and vigorous and it has caused me to miss a few shots as it slams into place. Red eye reduction as usual doesn't work so well, but that is why God invented photoshop. Moving to some of the really positive features:
The macro mode for closeups is a marvel. I need to do some tripod scientific tests, but it seems like the 707 out performs the 717 in macro. But we are still nailing great closeups of dew on flowers and the like and the 717's speed lets you freeze a bee on a flower or a hummingbird. The way it handles light on water is just spectacular. It can also handle shooting the sky through trees and similar shots that confound simple cameras. Like the 707, the combination of movable lens and ability to work with finder or lcd screen really gives you flexability when shooting things taller than you are. I got a "Senators Only" parking sign on Parliament Hill Ottawa that was about 8' up by holding the camera above my head and aiming through the lcd. I was trying to get a shot of a wierd bug face to face the other day so I laid the lens on the floor, and turned the finder screen to face me. Love it! The range of the zoom is all you can ask of a single lens, yes you do lose a bit of resolution at full digital zoom, but it can still nail a seaplane landing in Vancouver harbor and has enough pixels left to print a nice 8.5 x 11. It interfaces with both my Mac 10.2 and Windows XP Pro with no problem in either case. The XP software is actually a bit more efficient than iPhoto. I will close with some final tips:
My wife got me this little nylon Ex Officio bag to tie to the strap. That is a much more efficient in an active shoot than the memory stick wallet. If the subject moves, as soon as you start framing, teach yourself to push the shutter button half way down, that cuts a lot of the delay out of a shot. Don't buy a memory stick less than 128M, I think my wife's 707 came with a 16M, now *that* is funny. If you have never tried one of these web based photo storage and printers like Amazon.com's photo services or Image station, they are great for situations like shooting a family reunion. Just send the URL to everyone and they can order all the prints they want. Remember the days of looking for the negative with picture 5 on roll 9? I love my 717 and I am never going back to film.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended Digital Camera
Review: I purchased the F717 as the replacement for my 4meg camera. I had the opportunity to shoot quite a bit with the Sony, a Nikon 5700, and the Minolta 7i, and after comparing the images side by side, I bought the Sony. The images are very even in color balance, the saturation is excellent and the resolution is outstanding for a camera in this price range. The image quality is so clearly better than the others that the choice was simple, even considering the memory stick storage capacity limitation, which is not long a problem, with the recent announcement of higher capacity sticks being available this spring from both Sony and Sandisk. I'm purchasing the Sony wide angle lens this week, it's the only additional necessity I'll need. This is my camera until I can justify the Canon EOS D1s....
Rating:
Summary: Love's to take pic's
Review: I bought this camara about three weeks ago and I love it. It took a few days to figure out all of the features. I was having some problems with the exposure while taking action shots in the gym using the shutter priority mode....pic's where dark....I called sony support and within 5 minutes I had the solution...tried it and it worked. The picture quality is awesome. This is my second digital and by far the best. This camara does not limit you to just point and shoot which is the best feature. I bought the wide angle lens took some awesome scenic shots. The night shot is another great feature. You may not use all of the features right away but when you master the basics it allows you to grow and try new techniques.
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