amateur with grainy photos

Hi all - I just got a PowerShot S3 IS and I'm new to photography. Many of my photos, unless the subject is very close and lit perfectly, are very grainy. I've noticed the farther away and the darker the setting, the grainier they get. I absolutely hate using the built-in flash but I'm not sure how to get clearer shots. Can anyone give a newbie some advice?

thanks!

Hi there, it would probably really help if you can post some samples so that people can see what you mean exactly. Lots of people using S3's and S2's around here so I'm sure people could at least make some comments.

Please check camera settings and go through the manual. Post one or two example with exif data.

If you're shooting in low light, you're going to need a higher ISO ... 400/800 ... and the chances are you're going to get grainyness at a camera in the S3 price bracket. This is one of the restrictions of a P+S is ... that in low light the quality of the image with high ISO is grainy ... you'll need a DSLR for clearer shots in this scenario (or lots of light ) Don't get me wrong it is possible but you'll need to get the settings correct - mishnorgram's comment above is intended to help guide you there I think/ Also - If you have photoshop, Noise Ninja is a good plugin to help remove noise.

Even my SD700IS shows grainy when using 800ISO. Check and see if you have auto high ISO engaged, if that's an option. I've found that keeping the ISO as low as possible, not exceeding 400, helps my pics stay clear. The IS is wonderful on this little camera, makes a tremendous difference! Hmm, are you using the digital zoom a lot? Try to get close enough to stay within the optical zoom and you'll find your best pictures.
Hope this helps! I Love my 5D, but take a lot of pictures with my SD700 simply because it's easy to always have with me, and sometimes it's surprising how close the quality of the pictures are when compared to the much greater resolution of the 5D!
Shoot, shoot, shoot, then shoot some more! I even use it to check labels and prices so my wife can see what I'm looking at, show her the pic, then go back it it's the best deal! lol
Happy shooting,
Dale

Here's an example:

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You need to set your camera to "P" to be able to set the ISO manually. Your camera will still be mostly automatic, but with more manual control than in auto mode.

Low light photos can be made with S3 with pretty good success. The below picture was a grab shot taken with my S2 at night with the on board flash. I don't recall the ISO, but it was no higher than 200, because I never set it any higher than that. I did lighten it a bit with a photo editor, and that's where I managed to lose the shooting info. You say you don't want to use flash, but even if your demo photo would not have been noisy, you would have still had those black eyes by using no flash at all.

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marped wrote in post #2643575
Here's an example:

[Snip]

The ISO was set to "AUTO". In the manual, it says to choose a different ISO you simply keep pushing the button and it will go through the different settings. When I do this it only allows me to choose "AUTO" and "HI". Sorry if I'm not getting something here, I don't know much about photography to begin with so these concepts are a little confusing.

Sorry marped but you are not being fair to your camera. The S3 will produce great results if you let it, by having low light and the flash off you're pushing your camera too far.
In your sample shot there is not enough light reaching the eyes of your subject regardless of what camera you use. If you are not going to use an off camera flash then you really must use the one on the camera. To avoid the on camera flash being too harsh go to P mode, turn on slow sync in the menu and set your flash output to -1 or -2EV, that will get a bit of light going to fill out the eyes and reduce the noise on the subject quite a bit. The background will still expose correctly because the slow sync will cause the camera to keep the shutter open long enough.

If you could.. try not to zoom in too much on the subject.
It is better to zoom out and walk closer to the subject.
By doing so, you could gain almost a full stop.
Plus, try to shoot in M mode or Av mode and set the aperture to wide open to gain more shutter speed so you could set the ISO at about 100 for best result.
S3 IS can support up to 3 stops.. so you should be able to get a fairly good image even with 1/20 sec of shutter speed unless you have very shaky hand.

If all else fails, this free software can help on some pictures.

http://www.photo-freeware.net/neat-image.php

Hey there looks to me like the shots your showing for examples have a high ISO setting. The P setting will allow you to set your ISO setting just keep in mind the lower the ISO the better the image quality. If you go with the lower ISO You are going to need longer shutter speeds which of course cause camera shake. The other settings such as AV and TV will allow you to set either shutter speed or aperature you can also adjust your ISO settings as well.