I am now busy in preparing a year book for a close friend. I found this is a very interesting and instructive task. He just gave me his memory stick with all his photos from last year. That was 335 shots which I saved on CD immediately. The next thing I had to do was to import those files to my computer using the organizer. )I'll post about the use of the organizer later on.
After editing various samples to find the best editing workflow, I was surprised by the amount of noise even in good daylight. A look at a few files for properties showed me they were taken at 400 ISO.
Then I remembered I had somewhere an excellent utility: exposureplot.
I ran his picture in exposureplot, and here is what I found:

http://www.prestophoto.com/photos/image/2056375/34004

*All* his pictures had been taken with 400 ISO, at around 1/400 th speed! No wonder he got noise problems as well as loss of detail.

Apart from that, 77% of the shots were taken with the default semi-wide angle zooming.

However, he has enough excellent shots to make a very good book. Next time I see him (to tag, rate and select the images for the book), I have an idea of what I should teach him!