Ideal "all the time" settings for a point-and-shoot?

[mndaniels]

Hi everyone,
I have a Canon PowerShot SD1000 and am pleased with it as a general point-and-shoot camera. Typically it takes great photos for what I'm doing at the time (I'm looking at buying a SLR as I want to get into more advanced photography but that's another discussion) but noticed that on my last trip to New York a lot of my photos turned out incredibly pixelated.

I'm sure it's operator error and there's something I tweaked, but I can't seem to figure out whether it has to do with the exposure (when I was in NY the weather was overcast) or if it's because of something else.

Here's a couple of examples (note the grainyness on the blues):
http://flickr.com/photos/mndaniels/3041029547/in/set-72157609557716426/
http://flickr.com/photos/mndaniels/3046352684/in/set-72157609557716426/

However, when I was in Portland and Chicago the month before, the weather was a little less drizzly and the photos turned out much more crisp:
http://flickr.com/photos/mndaniels/2889980871/in/set-72157607519404838/
http://flickr.com/photos/mndaniels/2889969161/in/set-72157607518721752/

Normally this wouldn't irritate me, but I had wanted to print a few of my photos from my trip to NYC and most are just too grainy to even enjoy. :(

I'd love to save myself any future heartache and know if there's a failsafe setting that I should leave it on for "point an shoot" besides the "default" or "auto" settings that are factory standards.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. THANKS!!

[TheWengler]

That's from using a high ISO. There are no "all the time" settings. You could just raise the ISO to it's highest usable level, but then you'll get a certain level of noise in all your shots, even when it's not necessary.

[mndaniels]

AHHH! That makes sense. I just checked-- it's set to 1600 ISO-- I knew it must be something I messed with.

I know that for each situation different settings are best, and like you said there's no "all the time" setting, but I'm certain that 1600 is probably too high for everyday use.

Thank you, Lukas.

[David Metsky]

ISO 1600 is too high for any use on that camera (or on most compact cameras). Your best bet is to leave it in Auto ISO until you learn a bit more. If you want to take it out of Auto I wouldn't set it to anything over 400; 100 or 200 is the best for that camera.

[mndaniels]

Thanks, David. I appreciate the help. :)