Some of the problems which have plagued the F828 concern edge artifacts which, upon really close examination, show a block or "clump" of four pixels which define boundaries. When prints are greatly enlarged, this tends to result in edge aliasing of some degree which detract from the very excellent images this camera is capable of producing.
Sony didn't provide much in the way of a RAW converter, but with Adobe PhotoShop 8 there are a host of supported RAW formats which allow significant improvements in the ability to convert RAW files from numerous digital cameras including the F828.
In playing with this I discovered that it's apparently the Sony jpg algorithm which produces the annoying "stairstep" aliasing. A file captured in RAW and converted by PhotoShop to a jpg doesn't have this issue and represents a substantial improvement over the Sony jpg as saved by the camera. Fortunately, Sony saves in both a jpg and RAW format when shooting RAW. This makes it very easy to compare the results without intervening variables.
Following are tiny crops enlarged 500 percent which clearly show the remarkable differences in edge smoothness and detail between RAW captures and jpg captures with the F828. Below the crop are links to a jpg converted from RAW and it's jpg as "saved" by the camera for those interested. I tried to match the color, tint, levels, etc., as closely as possible, but they are not perfect since Adobe RAW has numerous settings which can be used. But it's still quite easy to see the differences. These differences probably would not matter too much in small prints up to 8x10 or so, but if you make really large prints, shooting in RAW and converting to either TIFF or JPG will clearly result in superior detail and edge sharpness.
Hopefully, Sony will see fit to make a firmware upgrade to this camera to correct the crude jpg conversion they are using.
http://www.lin-evans.com/samples/raw.jpghttp://www.lin-evans.com/samples/jpg.jpgBest regards,