Chuck,
Just a couple of observations:
For good stillife (guns) photography, the little pocket cameras are a stretch at best and often leave you wanting for more. They lack the size of the optics and often the quality of optics(not always on that last point). The larger cameras have more glass (larger diameter lenses), permitting more light in and also dimensional abberations of the lens are less critical as the size increases.
The amount of light that gets transferred to the focal plane is dependent solely on the f-number of the lens: focal length divided by lens diameter. Smaller cameras have smaller sensors and can get by with smaller-sized optics and shorter focal length lenses.
In general, it's easier to make a small lens perform better since aberrations scale with size (height of the ray from the optical axis).
Nice job on the pictures and good idea on the indirect flash technique.
Bruce
