Help with Fuji S700

[Lone-eagle]

I'm new to this forum. Stumbled on to it by accident. I bought a Fuji S700 a few months back. Been taking a lot of outside pictures and they have turned out pretty good. Took a lot of pictures on a trip to Alaska and they were good.
My grandson basketball season has started and I have tried for 3 different games to take pictures and they are not turning out very good. I will post a couple of pictures for you to see. After looking if anyone has recommendations on settings, I would appreciate it very much. I have tried using program mode, manual mode, and shutter priority. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Lone-eagle/BB/2007_1117DeerCreek0047.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Lone-eagle/BB/2007_1117DeerCreek0016.jpg

[tim11]

Both photos posted were taken at max aperture of 3.5 so there is not much for you to do except boosting ISO to 1600. This will double the shutter speed and you will get sharper image albeit more grainy ones. You can try a monopod or a tripod to eliminate hand shake effect but that will not help where the subjects are moving very fast.
The result you have there is not unexpected. It's just the light that less than ideal.

[Bynx]

According to the EXIF data of your first pic there isnt much you can do to improve the quality. If you get a faster shutter speed by increasing the ISO to 1600 you will end up with a lot of noise in the pic thus defeating the reason to increase it. I think you have the maximum settings for the best picture quality as it is. 1/125 shutter speed is fine, f3.5 is the widest aperture you can get, and ISO 800 is the maximum comprimise without going to 1600. And this is without use of a flash. That might have helped a bit but its pretty distracting to all concerned. You didnt by chance use the digital zoom? That will increase the noise. Id stay away from that unless absolutely necessary.

[Lone-eagle]

Can I help the photos with editing software

[Bynx]

I ran this pic through Noise Ninja, then sharpened the edges and then did an unsharp mask. What do you think?

[Lone-eagle]

Looks Ok.

Thanks
Dale

[tim11]

Can I help the photos with editing software
Software can only do so much however there is a saying: 'garbage in - garbage out'. Software won't improve if the input image is hopelessly poor in quality.