If you're looking for a digital camera that does a lot more than just snap shots, Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-F707 may be your ticket.

This $999 unit offers incredible flexibility for your bucks, including a top notch Carl Zeiss lens that helps move the camera far out of the "instamatic" world and into the league of heavy duty professional photographic equipment.

The DSC-F707 can take pictures of up to 5 megapixels in resolution, which is about as good as you could want under most conditions these days - as long as you bring along enough Memory Sticks to hold the images. My test unit came with a 16 Megabyte MemoryStick and that sucker was practically full after three high resolution shots!

But that's what Memory Sticks are for; think of them as a next generation floppy disk.

Anyway, this Sony is supposedly the first camera of this quality to be aimed at (and priced for) the mainstream consumer market. And while you might argue that a grand is still a pretty hefty price, it's peanuts compared to what a camera with these capabilities would have cost only a couple of years ago.

The five megapixel capability means you can shoot images at up to 2560 x 1920 resolution, which is higher than most consumer computer monitors can display. And to help ensure your images are up to snuff, the Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar 5X optical zoom lens pivots up and down so you can shoot in a variety of positions and configurations and still make good use of the rear-mounted LCD screen or "eye level" electronic LCD viewfinder (which looks suspiciously like those good old fashioned optical viewfinders).

The "eye level" viewfinder is the better of the two; the image quality is better and it doesn't lag as much as the rear panel-mounted one. It also gives you that traditional camera feel when holding the thing up to your eye.

On the other hand, the bigger LCD is more practical to use when flipping through the menus and the like: you can see the buttons, knobs and switches while monitoring the monitor.

The camera can be operated in automatic or manual modes, which is as it should be. It includes "Hologram AF," an auto focusing system that uses lasers to achieve accurate focus in low contrast, low light conditions. We tried this in a dimly lit local bar (hey, it was work!) and the pictures looked terrific.

Hologram AF looks funny in action, however: the camera projects a pattern of light onto the subject being photographed. Fortunately, the pattern doesn't show up on the final shot!

Another important photographic consideration is exposure, and this Sony covers that territory with "Multi-Pattern Metering" which is designed to give you the correct exposure in uneven lighting situations - for instance where one part of the scene is brightly lit and another is shadowed. It does this by dividing the scene into separate "cells," each which can be metered independently. And pre-flash Metering calculates the correct exposure by measuring the (built in) flash's light as it passes through the lens. It does this by setting off a "preliminary flash" to light the subject so the camera can calculate the proper exposure, followed by a second flash during which the image is actually recorded.

And, not surprisingly, there's more to this remarkable Sony.

The NightShot system shuts down the flash altogether, taking the picture using infrared light instead. And NightFraming combines NightShot, the Hologram autofocus and pre-flash metering to help ensure you get great shots in dim or challenging light.

And it works, with the caveat that anyone can screw up a shot independently of how good the camera might be. Still, we were constantly impressed with the quality of shots we got under conditions that were less than ideal.

The Cybershot can record in a variety of file formats, from JPEG and TIFF still images to voice memo, e-mail and text. Even better, you can capture short video clips in MPEG or animated GIF modes and there are even some editing functions built into the camera.

We had a ball using this camera during our all-too-brief test and I can think of a variety of applications for it. In my own work, for example, the Cybershot DSC-F707 would not only allow me to take product "beauty shots" to accompany my articles, but record short video clips on which I could interview manufacturers' reps or users and then stream the resulting video on the TechnoFILE Web site. You can also use the camera to make "mental notes" you can play back later, which could be quite handy.

The camera comes standard with the abovementioned 16MB Memory Stick media card, rechargeable battery, AC adapter/in-camera charger, an A/V output cable, USB cable, shoulder strap and lens cap. You also get a CD-ROM with USB drivers, MGI's Photosuite and VideoWave.

The only real downside is that there's so much stuff on this camera, and it does so many things, that you can count on a learning curve. Fortunately, it's a fun learning curve and, of course, you can dump any of your test shots that don't turn out. I also found the labels for the various buttons/switches/knobs so small that I had trouble making them out even with my reading glasses on. This, unfortunately, is a common problem with electronic stuff these days as they pack more and more features into smaller and smaller sizes.

Nothing's perfect, of course, and these minor complaints don't take away from the camera's benefits. It's a system we could easily live with.

The bottom line? Sony's Cybershot DSC-F707 is a marvelous digital still camera - and more. Its wide variety of features combined with its overall excellent build quality (it reminds me of high end film-based single lens reflex cameras of old) make it a powerful solution for professionals and "higher end" consumers alike.

Jim Bray's technology columns are distributed by the TechnoFILE and Mochila Syndicates. Copyright Jim Bray.

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