SD630 pictures grainy compared to S60

Hi, this is my first time posting...

My wife owns a Canon SD630 and we've noticed it's fairly grainy compared to my older Canon S60. We thought the newer camera would have better quality. I took a couple test pictures this morning with both cameras to show the difference between the two. Photos were taken using the Auto setting.

http://stang99.w1.com/​test_pictures/ (Click on thumbnails to view original JPG photos)

Would someone help me understand why the SD630 seems to have worse picture quality? I'd like to find out if it's normal or if there's a problem with the camera.

Thanks!

Try using Camera Manual and setting a low ISO setting. The extra pixel density of the SD630's sensor makes it more noisy, and high ISOs (which Auto will tend to use) aggravate the problem.

Jon wrote in post #4100748
Try using Camera Manual and setting a low ISO setting. The extra pixel density of the SD630's sensor makes it more noisy, and high ISOs (which Auto will tend to use) aggravate the problem.

Ok, I will figure out how to do this and test it out.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but shouldn't the Auto setting for a consumer camera (as opposed to "prosumer" or professional cameras) take care of this? The reason why we bought this for my wife was to make taking pictures simple and easy without having to fiddle with various settings.

So if my S60 takes pictures fine with the Auto setting, shouldn't her SD630 have comparable quality?

The "Auto" setting is configured to help you get "good pictures", but that covers a multitude of things. Using a low ISO would mean using very long exposures, increasing the likelihood of camera shake, so most Auto modes that control the ISO along with everything else use a higher ISO than you might choose on your own. And camera size affects stability - the bigger S60's easier to hold steadily, so Canon wouldn't have needed as aggressive an ISO boost function with it as with the tiny SD630 which, due to the complete absence of an optical viewfinder (a real mistake, IMO) has to be held out at arms length in order for you to compose your shot.

Jon wrote in post #4101005
The "Auto" setting is configured to help you get "good pictures", but that covers a multitude of things. Using a low ISO would mean using very long exposures, increasing the likelihood of camera shake, so most Auto modes that control the ISO along with everything else use a higher ISO than you might choose on your own. And camera size affects stability - the bigger S60's easier to hold steadily, so Canon wouldn't have needed as aggressive an ISO boost function with it as with the tiny SD630 which, due to the complete absence of an optical viewfinder (a real mistake, IMO) has to be held out at arms length in order for you to compose your shot.

So it sounds like you're saying it's a tradeoff between size/convenience versus better picture quality (at least on the Auto setting). If Canon had been more aggressive with the SD630 ISO settings, I'm assuming this would've resulted in more camera shake warnings? Still, I'm not sure if providing a better shot success rate at the cost of picture quality is worth it.

This is all interesting to know--thanks.

BTW, I never use my viewfinder on the S60 even though it has one.

Edit: I took some more pictures and compared the differences between the various ISO speeds. While playing around I noticed the fully Auto setting wouldn't use the flash even though it was set to auto and it was dark enough. Maybe the problem is with the flash not working properly, thus forcing the camera to use a higher ISO speed?