A long time ago, on a photography forum far, far away, I was asked "How do you do it?" The enquiry arose after I posted a particular photo, and was later clarified as "I've got the same equipment as you, but things never come out as sharp as yours", or words to that effect. This raises a couple of issues, and steers me away from the obvious answer of 'it' being all credited to my amazing artistic ability...
Sharpness in digital images is, as far as I'm concerned, down to three things:
Unless you've got a camera and lens capable of producing a sharp image, you're going to struggle to produce sharp shots of any decent size. But the key phrase there is 'decent size'. A soft or blurred photo can appear sharp when reproduced at a low resolution, either as a small print or on the web.
The photo above is blurred through camera shake (shutter speed was 2/3 second), yet at this size it looks sharp. I would be very reluctant to print it at anything larger than 6" x 4".
As long as you hold your camera steady enough, and ensure your shutter speed is fast enough to freeze any subject movement, and you focus correctly with sufficient depth of field, then you'll get as sharp a shot as your equipment is capable of.
If your shots aren't sharp, take a moment to first assess whether something about your technique is lacking, before you blame the lens or camera. Blurred image? What sort of blur? If everything has a smeary look to it, then it's probably camera shake. Put your camera on a tripod, or increase your shutter speed. If the smeary blurring only affects your subject, then the shutter speed was too slow to stop motion blur caused by the subject moving, even though the camera was steady. Is something in focus, but the subject not? Then the focus is wrong. Is too little of the subject in focus? Increase your depth of field by increasing your aperture value (change from f/4 to f/11 for instance).
By knowing how different sorts of failing in technique show themselves, you have a chance to correct them.
The way that a digital photo is processed for showing on the web or as a print can have a massive effect on its apparent sharpness. Consider the following two images, and ask yourself "which photo is sharpest?"
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