Cute Child next door, but need help... :(

[Meg C]

I was sitting on our front steps and our next door neighbor's child was playing in their driveway. I turned the camera toward him and immediately he began to strike poses for me, smiling and saying "Cheeeee!" "Cheeeee!" It must be hard to say Cheese with no front teeth! lol

Anyway, my problem is the noise in this picture... When I view it at full pixels, it is SO noisy. I tried using photoshop to make it appear less noisy, but it seems less sharp now as well. This was shot with my Sigma 70-300 f4-5.6 DL. Am I just doomed because of the quality of my lens, or is there something I'm doing wrong? I shot this without a tripod, but blurry is not the same thing as noise, correct?

Thanks for any ideas/help!

http://www.streamload.com/stevnmd/nature/next_door_child.jpg

[Sam]

I have never used your lens, but I did have a garbage uv filter on one of mine when I first started using my DRebel and I was getting poor image quality. When I removed it they became much more sharp and I was happy.

If you are using a filter make sure it is as good or better than your lens...

[Hellashot]

Please show your EXIF data.

[Meg C]

Hope this is what you're looking for? :)

I was shooting with the hood on, no filter.
Shutter speed 1/320
Aperture 5.6
ISO speed 400