When it comes to digital photography there's fast and then there's FAST. Casio's new Exlim F1 is FAST—with a capital F. It's also able to travel back through time and help you recover the shot that you missed, that elusive "one that got away" moment that happened right before you pressed the shutter release.

The $1,000 F1 is a six-megapixel camera, not too shabby, but certainly nothing like the high resolution of the Canon 1Ds Mark III. However, that's because the camera has some tricks up its sleeve that wouldn't be possible with a larger sensor.

The camera's first trick is the ability to capture 60 frames per second. That's not a typo folks, that's double-the-speed-of-video full frames per second still images. The interface lets you decide how to use that maximum speed as well, allowing you to set the camera to 60 frames across two seconds, 30 frames across three, and so on. That's fast, no matter how you slice it.

While this is being touted as a miracle camera for sports photographers, I'm personally more interested in the ability to do stop-motion type photography, capturing things that are normally difficult to photograph, such as water droplets and balls bouncing,

The second exciting feature allows photographers to capture something from the past, well, not exactly. When the shutter release button is half-pressed (to autofocus), the camera begins to capture images, throwing away the oldest as the buffer fills. When you finally press the button and capture your photo, the camera also keeps some photos from just before you pressed the shutter. If you've ever lamented the fact that you captured people in an image and their eyes were closed or caught the lightning strike just AFTER it went away, this is the camera for you.

The camera doesn't just stop there in the super-cool department. It also has a built in motion detector, super-high-frame-rate video camera and more. It's yet another indication that camera companies are moving past the sensor size war and trying to come up with cameras that can take advantage of the power of digital photography in ways that film never, ever could.

On the lens front the F1 has a 12x lens, equivalent to 36-432mm on a 35mm camera. That's going to be an amazing range for sports photographers who are looking to capture an image from far away at super-high speeds.