Grainy Pictures with my 7.1 mega pixal camera?

My pictures are Gainy with my digital olympus SP-510 UZ Camera. The image quality is at HQ 3072x2304, but when I uploaded the pictures they were grainy and a bad quality. Not smooth and sharp like my old 4 Mega Pixal camera. Whats going on!?

I just got this camera for christmas.

Probably not enough light in the image. Dark scenes look like crap on any camera no matter what the Mega Pixel rating is. You might also have a high level of compression selected. Like an MPEG setting or something. When you upload photos from a camera you want the least or no compression. This will give you the most amount of image data to work with. Read your manual and check these things out.

Your motherboard (inside the digital camera) was damaged i beleive

Happened to mine Sony too, it was only 2 yrs old. The repairment cost 250 (aussie bucks), so i say 'no', buy a new one, better

Honestly, I think it's because you have an Olympus. I have a 6.3 mega pixel with Fuji and it is the best camera that I ever had. Somebody on here might tell you different but I know 3 other people who have that same camera you have and they said the same thing as you. The quality is not good when they upload it and when they pick up the prints from Ritz/Wolf camera, they don't come out good. Take it back to the store is my advice!

My guess is the pictures are fine but to show them in a smaller frame windows needs to compress them. try to see the image in the real size. (zoom 100%) , also low light some times results grainy pictures. Finlay set the camera on a lower resolution and try one more time.

lol did you let it autofocus by pushing down the button just a little bit...? its a dumb question, but some cameras take longer to focus. my friend cheng's camera was also defective, as were the peoples' who posted above me. definitely take it back =O

You must post a photo or a link to see whats going on ...
Grainy photo can be a sign of not enough light = need a flash or improper settings. Also maybe it is about noise at a high ISO.

I doubt the main board is bad. More than likely it may be setting the ISO to the highest setting. I'm not sure.
The first one looked fairly good, but I did notice some grainy-ness on the second.
If you are really concerned with the quality I recommend sending it to Olympus and seeing if there is anything that can be done.

I was checking the specs on that model and the ISO is incredibly high. I bet that is the problem. Try to find a way to force the ISO to 800 or so and that should clear it up (1600 max if necessary).