Sony DSC-F717 seems fine except

Lens dirty possibly, someone touched the lens? clean the lens, see if that solves it.

Hi eliotpress,
Your DSC-F717 has bad CCD Imager and good news is Sony will fix it free of cost. Click Sony Weblink, confirm the symptoms and get further details. Hope problem will solve.

this problem with either the Display itself or the Interface between the LCD and the main board.

if this is the problem then you will have to surely open the unit.

if you are ok with opening the unit then please let me know i shall tell you some tips about opening the unit.

but be careful. if you attempt to open the unit with out proper expertise you may end up with many more problems.

hope this helps.

thank you.

have a great day

thank you

Your camera may be suffered from a faulty CCD chip, especially if the affected products are stored or used in high-temperature and high-humidity environments. If this occurs, the signal is not output from the CCD normally in Shooting Mode, which may cause a distorted image or the absence of an image. This malfunction can be confirmed on the LCD monitor screen during shooting. The same malfunction also appears on the recorded image

Try connect the camera to the a Tv and check the display.

When this happens it is either a faulty lcd display, or the lcd display ribbon cables faulty or not well placed into connector.
To access the LCD display, and the LCD ribbon cable you will need to take apart the camera, this is a job that must be done by a technician.
You can ask a quote at a local camera repair shop or call the service telephone number printed on last page of your owner manual.
Check also guaranty terms.

LCD main PCB is faulty. Get a new LCD.
Hint: Buy a faulty Sony camera from ebay from the same series as your cam and install it.

Its easy, take screws of and remove old screen from connector, install new screen.

Too easy

Cheers
JigSaw
XoXO