The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX33 is effortless to use. Despite it’s technology, it is simply designed and user friendly. Those who are looking for a great camera for action shots of kids and pets are also often looking for a slender portable design. If heading out to a crowded kid’s production or a day at the zoo, the last camera a parent wants to lug around is a big, bulky, heavy piece of equipment. This camera is slender enough to fit in a shirt pocket but doesn’t lack usability. The Intelligent Auto Mode helps make the best selections for the photo being taken with the Automatic Scene Selection feature. This feature puts the camera to work by automatically choosing many otherwise ignored scene modes like portrait or starry night. When taking pictures of subjects that are on the move, it’s often difficult to stop and adjust the mode for the particular scenery being photographed. In addition, the DMC-FX33 also does a great job with sequential shots with the High Speed Burst mode. This is a helpful feature if photographing a sporting event, for example capturing a kid at the batting plate. This mode allows you to take as many as 4-7 pictures per second in succession when the shutter button is engaged. Although, just make sure the camera is on and ready before preparing to shoot the pictures as this model does tend to take approximately 5 seconds to start up. Panasonic continues to utilize some of their previously successful features to improve focus such as Face Detection, Mega OIS (optical image stabilizer), and Intelligent ISO. All of these features combined make a really intuitive auto focus with little to no delay and fewer blurred pictures. Part of the reason this model is so efficient is the advanced image-processor, the Venus Engine III, which has improved response time for the shutter and made the camera more energy efficient by requiring less power consumption. When an average lithium camera is fully charged it will give the user approximately 150-250 shots depending on the quality. This camera will average around 280 which is a tremendous convenience if the plan is to spend the day taking pictures of the kids. It is very probable to run out of memory card space long before camera power. Once all of those pictures have been taken another problem is keeping them organized. Pictures of the zoo, pictures of the play last weekend, and pictures of the family all mixed together makes for a confusing mess that is often left for a “rainy day” to sort through. However, the DMC-FX33 has a fantastic title and edit function which allows the user to name, date, and categorize pictures into files such as; portraits, events, pet, travel, etc. Therefore, when looking for the picture of the family trip to Disneyland you can skip right over to travel and stumble on the actual picture sought. The images delivered by this camera are rather clear and bright but with a high ISO as bold as 6400, caution should be exercised not to keep the setting unreasonably high or the pictures can tend to be grainy. Otherwise, the ISO is another contributing factor to a really great photograph even in low-light conditions.