davidd's A Doll A Day 2019

[Alliecat]

Hmmm.
I like the EOS colour balance best on the first set, but can see it's a bit soft.  What f-stop are you using?
I almost always use manual focus on the dolls and look for the 'beep'.  The figure is probably too small for the autofocus to hit properly.  I usually shoot quite a few photos and check the focus on each to get what I'm after.  I see you mention struggling with the autofocus so I assume there is some reason you're not on manual?

I had to dig back through my Pentax Forum posts when I was struggling with the 'new' K-x that wasn't sharp; someone offered this advice for testing if the focus is in the right place.

First you want to know if your AF system is front focusing, back focusing or just frustratingly inconsistent. I think this is easier with boring methodical test photos because you can set up the test so the point of focus is much more visible. ...
Set the K-x so it only uses the center focus point. The K-x doesn't have a lot of points but you want to know which point the camera is using. Set the lens aperture to the lowest f number. That's to make the depth of field as small as possible, to make the point of focus more obvious. A tripod helps a lot for repeatable results. The color temperature of the lighting will affect results somewhat - you want lighting that's similar to what your real shots will use. Daylight is better because it eliminates potential problems with fluorescent flicker or other artificial light quirks.
Then you need a target for the AF system to focus on. That should be a high contrast detailed subject. I like to use newspaper text shot at an angle, so the top of the page tilts away from the top of the image. It's got contrast so the AF system locks on to it in a predictable place. It's got small detail. The angle means that only one line of text is the right distance away from the AF sensor. I can remember the line that was in the center of the frame when I look at the photo later. ...
The newspaper text will undereose but that doesn't matter a lot. Adjust if it bothers you. You can raise ISO to get a faster shutter speed to eliminate camera movement problems, but it is better to use a tripod if your shots have so much noise that the point of focus is less obvious. If you use a tripod, use the two second delay on the camera, which automatically disables SR. ... Try to set up your test so that you are fairly close to your test subject.
You should be able to get some test images where you can say for sure that the camera should have focused exactly HERE and see where the focus really was. If it's off, then maybe further tests to see if it's off at certain distances, one particular lens, certain light, inconsistently off or whatever. A measurement of how much it's off will help if you try to adjust the AF system.

But, I'm not sure how to "adjust the AF system" and have to admit that I didn't get round to trying this... life and stuff... and ended up just using the 50mm for almost all my doll photos, & it can be quite sharp.

Do you have "shake reduction" and is it turned on?  I think that can cause some blur...?  And you've learned about the minimum focus for the DSLR lens...  Surely there is something good on eBay for a decent used price.  And if you have long ex'posure times, of course tripod.  The rule I always go by is don't hand-hold at slower than 1/focal length.  So for a 200mm lens I'd want a tripod for slower than 1/200.  Which of course would vary depending on how steady one's hands are, but that's a standard thing.  From the days of [ahem] "real photography with film"

Don't give up!  Your pix are fun and entertaining.  On small computer screens, the imperfections you see may not always show as much.  I know that doesn't help when you're trying to take the best possible photo.  I was pretty frustrated with the K-x at first too.  The kit lens was a lot of the problem.
Hopefully your new Lumix will be better!

And Carly is super cute and cheerful as always