Troubleshooting: unable to take a sharp shot with Canon EOS1200D

[bobbysafety]

Thanks a lot for the input and yes, I am using a Rebel T5/EOS1200D + EFS 17-85 USM.

I very happily admit that the guitar picture is the best so far. However, I agree with Braineack that it is not great. I could probably shoot a better, more preciser and tighter picture using my 60$ point-and-shoot.

Also, I am not sure that the local climate + bad skills of mine completely justify why landscape pictures come out so poorly. My arguments are: I shot in many locations, from sunny California, to England, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, etc. I used all different modes, from Manual to full Automatic and I shot good pictures with another body with my objective. The results always look kind of airbrushed. I actually do not have one single good landscape shot (out of circa 2000).

Again, I do not want to sound reluctant to put all the blame on my skills. On the contrary, I would be glad to! That would pretty much solve the problem, but I trying to understand how so many things could go wrong. I mean is it too much to ask from a 400$ camera and 300$ lenses to take a full auto landscape shot that looks "at least as good" as a 2009, 65$, point-and-shoot (by Samsung of all companies)?