As a digital newbie with one brief trip with his new P10, I'm not sure I can give you the right answers, but here are some thoughts/comments. Unless it's defective, I doubt the camera is the source of the problems. Not that all of my shots were in focus, but most of the time this was a problem attempting macros--I'm used to a framer, which tells me exactly what the focal distance is. I assume operator error. At a couple of feet, focus tended to be quite good. I know I need more experience with macros, and figuring out just how close I can get with this camera. I should be playing around with it on the surface to get more familiar with it. When I install and learn how to use a decent photoeditor, I'll try to summon the bravery to show some pix--good, sharp ones can be taken. I don't know if windows xp will let me scale down the pixels.
Second, I'd be willing to bet that you'd do much better with a strobe than video lights. Should greatly reduce any effects of motion.
Third, it's not a 505--no ability to set aperture/shutter priority or full manual (I'm guessing you could do that with the bigger, fancier camera), so you may be getting less depth of field than you're used to--again a strobe would help. More pixels don't help much if the pic is out of focus. You can review the blurred pics to see what the f stop and exposures were, and see if that's part of the problem.
Good luck, and keep trying.
