Don't worry too much about sharpness

Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept."

I don't think this is universally true, but it's certainly a valid concept for a host of typical photography subjects.

Think about paintings, for example.  While there are a few artists who do hyper-realistic paintings that are essentially indistinguishable from photographs, in general the thing that makes a painting so good is that it is a representation of reality, full of imperfections that taken as a whole communicate a feeling to the viewer.

That's important to keep in mind:  A photo, like a painting, consists of an arrangement of dots on a two-dimensional medium, and the 'image' is formed in your head.

Now, if you are shooting landscapes that are intended to be printed large for sale, you probably need a sharp image.  In some cases, portraits also need some sharpness, depending on exactly what you are trying to do. Plus, unless you are doing environmental portraits, the trend is to make only the eyes razor sharp, and let depth of field limit the sharpness of other parts of the face.

Just for the sake of documenting how a child looked in the past, and how they changed as they grew up, for example, you can take hundreds of photos and many of them will be sharp.  But for storytelling purposes, sharpness is not necessary.

This is a photo of my granddaughter.  This kid has more energy than any child I have ever seen.  As soon as she learned to walk, she was constantly in motion.  In fact, when she came to visit me, the first words out of her mouth would always be "Let's Run!", and off she would go, expecting me to chase her.  I wanted to take photos of her, but I could never catch her still enough to even get a photo.  This one, above, was pretty much my most successful attempt over a period of TWO YEARS.  And as you can clearly see, it's not sharp at all.  But I love it, because it completely represents her personality over those years.  She was happy, and in motion.  And here she is in a recent photo, playing with her sister.  Her games always involve running.

Remember, your photos tell a story and that story is about communicating inside the viewer's head.  Sharpness is not really required in most cases.