Thanks David! Very nice of you to help me out. Yes I see what you mean buy noise. That appears in a few of my pics. What is the ISO? I'm totally photography illiterate. LOL
I love my new camera. I'm having so much fun with it. I got all kinds of pics of me with friends last weekend. I took one of a couple and got a great shot of a firework going off right over them to the side. Dont think I should post it though becasue I dont have their permission
The ISO determines how sensitive your camera is to light. The sensitivity increases as the ISO increases. So, for example, a picture taken with an ISO of 100 and a shutter speed of 60, could also be taken using an ISO of 600 and a shutter speed of perhaps 100. This comes in handy if you don't have a tripod, because there is less chance for camera shake and blur due to the higher shutter speed. But the higher ISOs will generate noise. So, I always try to keep a tripod with me for night time pictures and use a lower ISO. I rarely go above 200 unless I have no other choice.
Lower ISOs often mean clearer pictures.
You can probably adjust the ISO by accessing your camera's menu. Or if your camera is like mine, you may have an ISO adjustment knob on the top of the camera. Most cameras though, will allow you to set the ISO via the camera's menu system. The camera will probably allow you to choose between ISOs of 100-800, or perhaps ISO 50-400. Those two are the most common ranges, along with an AUTO setting. If you leave the camera set to auto ISO, it will probably try to choose higher ISO settings automatically because it's trying to eliminate camera shake and blur. If your camera is doing this, take it off auto and manually choose a lower number... and than make sure you use a tripod!