Sony have announced the DSC-F828 digital camera. The details to drool over:

• Carl Zeiss T* coated Vario-Sonnar lens. It’s f/2 to f/2.8 / 7.1, with a zoom range equivalent to 28-200mm (7x). The T* coating cuts lens flare and reflections.

• CompactFlash slot. Yes, finally Sony give in and support CF.

• 8 megapixel. 3,264 x 2,448. That’s better than ISO 400 35mm film.

• Four color CCD. Sony have added blue/green sensors to the CCD grid, for better resolution at the frequencies where the human eye is most sensitive—which means more accurate and natural-looking colors.

• Macro focus down to 20mm.

• Fully adjustable double lens rings. Adjust zoom and focus manually like on a conventional SLR.

• High resolution digital viewfinder.

• RAW image support so you can get the full 14 bit resolution of the CCD.

• Takes 58mm filters.

• Selectable focus point. Use a joystick to indicate exactly which part of the scene to focus on.

• True TTL flash.

Plus it has all the DSC-F717 features such as laser focus, night shot, spot/multipoint/center weighted metering, exposure lock, proper flash hotshoe, custom white balance, 100-800 ISO, shutter speeds from 30 seconds to 1/2000, 3+ hour battery life, and live histogram in the viewfinder.

It also records MPEG1 video with sound at 640×480 30fps. And it’s black.