DImage G500 Grainy Pics

Some cameras display a grainy picture in low light. Do you have the camera set to the highest number of megapixels and fine image or do you have it set to a lower resolution to get more pictures on the card?

Your pictures should not be looking grainy. Are they printed grainy but look clear on your screen. If so then it's just your printer. Try forcing the flash in the highest resolution. If you video's are grainy too then there is possibly something wrong with your camera. Make sure your lens is really clean. Worst case your CCD sensor inside your camera could be bad. Hope not!

You need to check your ISO setting and the picture quality you have your camera set to. It should be at the maximum megapixels and fine quality and the ISO should be below 800 or even 400.

The most likely cause of this is an inadvertent change in the settings. Check to ensure that your camera is set at the highest quality setting (Megapixels). Also, look at the program modes. For regular point-and-shoot pictures, just set it on 'auto'. If it has been set on a night-shot or set to manual, the aperature and shutter speed will make the image look grainy.
Hope this helps. Good Luck!

You have likely set the camera to shoot photos in low resolution, or high ISO or both. Check your camera manual for detailed instructions on how to set these options.

If you don't have your computer manual, you can download one from this page at Canon.com. This is for the Powershot S500, this is the same camera as your IXUS 500, they just gave it a different name in different countries.

Always set the camera to shoot in the highest quality resolution mode. Memory cards are relatively cheap and you don't want to end up getting that photo of the lifetime but because you shot it in a low resolution mode you can't get a good print!

If you are shooting in low light the camera may be automatically boosting the ISO. There are only 3 ways to shoot in low light:

1) Flash - only works when your subject is relatively close to the camera.
2) Increase the ISO which results in noise in the dark areas of the image.
3) Use a tripod and a long shutter (slow shutter speed).

This is easily fixed - go into MENU and you will find a picture quality Q. This is designed to go from FINE - Medium - POOR in order to enable you to take more photos on you cameras memory. Install at least a 1gb memory stick into your camera and then choose HIGHEST QUALITY you will now be able to get plenty a photos at the highest quality possible gor the camera with an 8.2 megapixal those photos should be really nice. Have Fun Lancer721

Check the iso settring, if it's too high you'll get a grainy picture. Also, it's worth selecting reset in the camera menu to get the camera b ack to factory reset values.

Hey missy0528,
There are a few reasons your images might be grainy, one of which is your image quality is set to low. I would always have the camera set to the highest resolution possible, because you can always reduce the size of an image but you can never make it bigger. Another cause of grainy images in digital cameras is the sensitivity of the camera (ISO) is set to high. Since you are only seeing grainy images when you use the zoom the reason for the grainy images is most likely do to using the digital zoom. All a digital zoom does is crop the image much as you can do in some computer applications, and by doing this you greatly reduce your image quality. I would never use a digital zoom. Your camera has a 5x optical zoom and a 5.6x digital zoom. I would only use the optical zoom. I hope this helps!

Sincerely,
Allan
Go Ahead. Use Us.

Check out this Canon link. May be part of the problem.

With the iso set on auto mode it will change depending on the light and anything above iso 200 is very bad on this camera i know have the 717 and it does a lot better but if you can set the iso yourself and take it off auto allways use 100 or 200 for low grain.