My first attempts at taking some photos with a nice camera

[Origami]

Nice pictures. Definitely much improved. So too close, huh? RAW and post-processing is definitely the way to go if you have the time.

[wade]

Not sure if someone else mentioned it, but you are shooting in relatively low light conditions.  If something is moving, it will blur - esp as you push up the aperture number to gain more depth of field.  I would recommend pushing your ISO up.  Start at 400, but you might even need to get closer to 1000.  Newer cameras can handle those higher ISOs fairly well without tons of graininess appearing.