What is ISO?

1. ISO 9001
2. Six sigma
3. Lean manufacturing
4. Total qualaity management

Try changing the ISO setting from AUTO to 100. Fast ISO speeds create more grainy photos. The SD chip should not have any affect on sharpness. Either you ISO is too fast, or your shutter speed is too slow. You might also try formatting the sd chip using the menu on the camera.

try pressing the f button next to the LCD then going to the second option down -that is where you can change your ISO -and either increace your ISO when there is less light, or set your ISO on auto, and have the rest of the camera on auto too

when you think that there is less light or whn you are taking a picture indoors or during night times under auto then reduce the ISO acordingly like if the lighting is of the indoor lighting then you can place the ISO at 80-200

if outdoor and during night time 80 or below and so on depending on the light conditions

the lower the light the lower the ISO
this would increase the shutter time though improving exposure quality

happy clicking

Did You ever use a SLR back in the stone age when all we had was film?
Film was/is rated with a ISO number, the higher the number the faster the film.
Fast film had fewer and larger grains of silver iodide, (the particles that changed tone, color etc.when exposed to light), therefore it took less light to take a picture.

The down side was a increase in grain. Large grains meant that blow ups, 8x10, 11x14, posters, etc were not as sharp,
as with slow ( low ISO film)
Most outdoor photos had plenty of light so the film had more grains ( high ISO) to capture the available light, and the result was a much sharper image.

Portrait photography used very very slow film ( your 50 ISO setting) but in a studio you had all the artificial lighting you needed, so your portrait came out with very fine detail.

Now the FE-280 does not have a shutter setting, but we can compensate by changing the ISO setting, and the overall effect will be.
Fastest= 1600 ISO for very little light and poorest picture quality.
Slowest=50 ISO for plenty of light and the highest picture quality

200 ISO was the most popular because it worked well outdoors and indoors with a flash, with very good overall picture quality.

400 ISO was a good choice for gloomy days and medium lighting conditions.

Your ISO settings on the FE-280 will have a similar effect.
My best advice is to play around with the different settings until you develop a knack for it, we used to use light meters and a lot of guesswork, quite expensive when you had to buy film and pay for processing.

OK enough history. heres how....
Turn dial to (P) PROGRAMAUTO
Press (MENU)
The camera menu in center is bracketed, Press (OK)
Scroll down one bar on the on screen menu to (ISO)
Press (OK)
Scroll up or down to desired ISO
Press (OK)
TAH DA !

All other functions will be automatic or any other setting that you might choose..
If you change the dial and later go back again to (P) it will retain your selected ISO setting, which is displayed, on screen.

I hope I was help full, and you enjoy some of the special effects that you will now be able try.
By the way... good taste in cameras.
Best regards, Paul

Please more explanation - 'The ISO'
The iso related to image quality- you appear to have it set to low quality setting which gives the maximum number of images but of low resolution. Reset it to HQ or SHQ for best results.
Check your manual re how to do this.
The is usually a more comprehensive manual of the software CD in PDF format

hotoPC 650 captures images in 24-bit color (16.7 million colors). Your pictures will not display maximum image quality if your monitor or computer's video controller doesn't support this color depth. Additionally, if your pictures are taken in 1154 x 864 mode, try increasing your video resolution above 640 x 480. You may need to upgrade your system to achieve the best possible image quality. If your pictures look better on the screen than when you print them out, you may need to upgrade your printer. An EPSON Stylus ink jet printer, for example, provides excellent image quality. If you used drag and drop to insert your pictures, they may appear grainy. Try importing them into your documents instead.

but actually here was some rumour last Ocktober or November, that the RAW conveter was not ready yet, and that was the reason why they did not ship S3 earlier. This might be the reason after all (the last 2-3 months delay, did not ship in September as they said in summer), considering the image quality the 3.0 version had (vs. ACR 2.4 non official). Could you post some 100% crops of both (v3.1B and ACR 2.4), with best quality setting.