The Art of Bonsai Project

Hi Carl: I am really looking forward to this contest, not that I hope to win though that would be interesting but the opportunity to hone my photography skills is something I look forward to.
I hope you don't mind if I tap your brain on this issue. I know you have written the article that is linked above, I have read it, and it is excellent. I have more specific questions for you about the camera you use, the D70, which is the same I have but I am still learning how to use it. I'm having a real problem getting the kind of clarity I am looking for. I would be curious to know how you handle that issue.

My pictures seem to lack the sharpness I am looking for. As to your pictures do you shoot in raw mode or the high res JPEG?

Vance,
I just looked up the review for your camera, and on the picture comparison page, I see a bit of softness as compared to the Canon 300.
Now the raw picture for your camera does show a lot more sharpness as compared to the jpeg, but even then, depending on which raw editor you use, I also saw some softness in some of those.
Which mode do you usually shoot your pics in? I usually use the "P" mode for outside daylight. Of course that probably won't change the difference on sharpness. Does your camera have an area where you can go to, to change the picture quality as to sharpness and contrast?
On the whole though, your camera does take some very good pictures though, from what I've been seeing in other areas of the reviews, and it should for the price it's going for. I just hope you can find a happy medium where you will be pleased with the results.
I just upgraded to the Sony DSC-R1 and am extremely happy with the results. I will be using this camera to shoot the pics for this contest.

Thank you Thomas for you input. I have not tried to shoot in Raw, I have tried Raw jpeg. Some of the other things you suggested may be possible but the owners manual was written by a devil from hell, it is disorganized and hard to follow so I am going to have to do some research on it.

Vance,
that's too bad about your owners manual being the way it is. I too had that problem with my cell phone manual. Anyway here is the link to the review I mentioned, that has something like 26 pages (not long) of things that might be of help to you, unless you already saw this review. In fact on this same site, there is a discussion forum on your particular camera even. You might want to ask some of your questions there. On the review page, if you go to the top where it says "Introduction" and click on the arrow, you will see all the pages it lists.

Link for the forum
Hope this helps.
Link for the review:

Vance Wood's sample photo for comment.

Carl,
I must thank you for your excellent artical on photographing Bonsai, I used the set-up to-day to photograph my Acacia, the last time I took photographs in this manner was about 20yrs ago when I was doing salon work with color slides and an Ashia Pentax K1000, using a digital camera is a very new thing for me, with the help of my very computer literit son I have managed a reasonably good image.
Bernie.