My Nikon V1 seems to always take grainy photos?

I got the Nikon V1 as a Christmas gift and I took it with me on my vacation to NYC last week. On the camera screen all the photos seemed to be turning out great and I was impressed but once I got home and looked at them on the computer a lot of them weren't even printable in my opinion. In hardly even low light the camera created very grainy photos. It even seemed to use a higher iso in situations where light shouldn't have been a problem. I kept it on it's automatic screen mode because accessing pasm on this camera is time consuming and a bit of a pain. I had heard so many great things with this camera and I was really excited to use it on this trip but I'm now a bit disappointed with it's quality. Is there anyway I can stop my camera from taking photos like this? I've seen peoples sample photos with this camera and I know it's more capable than what it did for me in NYC.

Set your ISO manually.

Test your camera!
1. You should ALWAYS use the maximum resolution that the camera has. This is expressed is the greatest number pixel setting. Or expressed another way use the setting that yields the LEAST number of pictures for the memory card in the camera.
2. Using a relative low ISO setting of 200 is my favorite, but you should be able to get away with ISO 400.

When I buy a camera I always test it by taking pictures like described above and then have an 11x14 print made from my best shot of the group. If it is sharp and clear with good color, I keep the camera otherwise I return it! The 11x14 print only costs about $4.00 at one hour processors like Costco, etc.

I had a friend who went on a cruise (a once in a lifetime experience-right?) and set the camera for maximum number of pictures for the memory card. RESULT his 5x7's were cr*p or any other cuss word you want to use.

You have had the camera since Christmas and have not properly tested it? That is a shame.

I have the V1 as well. I got one of the $299 discounted specials like you probably did in Dec of last year.

I always shoot in PSAM, and never use auto ISO. I tend to do this as I also own a DSLR, and am very comfortable with using these modes. Yes, the V1's PSAM controls are kind of buried in the menu, but once you set the mode, you can adjust shutter speed and aperture directly from the camera's controls.

The ergonomics of the control placement is a major criticism of the V1, and the V2 corrected this problem by placing the PSAM function in dials and buttons for direct access. But I figured I could live with the quirky menu controls of the V1 for the $299 discounted price vs. $799 for the V2.

I have found the photos fairly high quality, and have not had any noise problems. I shot literally a thousand photos with it on a recent cruise to the Caribbean.

I always set the ISO to it's minimum of 100, and go from there if I need to. The lower the ISO the less noise. But if you want to go to auto ISO, there are three auto settings:

Auto 3200
Auto 800
Auto 400

This means that if you set Auto to 400, then it will use ISO from 100 to 400, with the maximum ISO of 400. Or, if you set auto to Auto 3200, it will use any ISO from 100 to 3200, and so on.

If you use auto ISO, only set it to Auto 400.

For some reason, it seems the V1 tends to favor a higher ISO in auto mode. If you look at your photos in a photo editor, check and see what the EXIF data shows as what the ISO was the camera selected. I bet it will be fairly high.

Also you may also want to make sure you download the latest firmware. When I got my V1 in Dec, there was a newer firmware available.

If you try these things, I think you will find the V1 works fairly well. While not as good as a DSLR, the photos are a lot better than the typical compact camera.

Best thing to do is read the owners manual.

Set camera to Auto mode at ISO 100. Set white balance to auto and EV to 0. Go out and take a picture of a brightly colored car parked under the sun. If that comes out grainy, return the camera to the store it was bought from and take the sales receipt with you. Let them figure it out.

Warning! Authorized Nikon resellers only service cameras bought in one of their stores within their distributorship area. If your camera came from another distributor's area, it will be marked as a gray unit and you will be advised to send the camera to an off-shore international service center instead. It sucks but that's how Nikon operates. It may be comforting to know that Canon has started the same system already.