'Consumers don't utilize scene modes to their fullest capability. 'All that takes place without touching a button,' Fried said. And when the camera is in portrait modes, it uses the face-detection technology for further refinement. It lets the camera take its best guess about whether the scene is one of five modes: portrait, landscape scenery, macro close-up, night scenery and night portrait, said Alex Fried, Panasonic's national marketing manager for imaging in North America. Intelligent Scene Selector, if switched on, replaces a common set of broad parameters that otherwise must be manually activated. But more novel is what Panasonic calls Intelligent Scene Selector. For one thing, Panasonic is catching up with competitors such as Fujifilm and Canon by introducing face detection, which lets the camera guess more intelligently about what the photographer is trying to shoot and adjust settings accordingly. Which is why Panasonic's three newest cameras, the Lumix FX-33, FX-55 and FZ18 are notable.

But a vastly larger quantity want their cameras to take photos with the correct focus, exposure, white balance and other factors without having to do more than press the shutter button.

Some subset of photographers would like a compact camera with lots of higher-end features and manual controls.