I've taken a picture with my Canon PowerShot SX210 IS and the following settings:
- Aperture:
F8(Maximum I have) - Shutter speed:
1/400 - ISO:
80 - Focal length:
21.1 mm(118mm 35mm-e)
I did increase the contrast a bit through Gimp later on. What other camera settings and timings should I have considered to make this picture sharp?
Please note: with this camera, I can't shoot in raw, and post-processing is the secondary concern for me. 
EDIT: I zoomed it to 100% and then cropped off 600x600.
And I didn't mention previously that I had used manual focus. And also, ALL the broken chairs together are the subject. 
Answer
f/8.0 is often the "sweet spot" for lenses on 35mm SLRs however on a small sensor camera like a Canon PowerShot that aperture is probably causing diffraction - there's a good reason the aperture doesn't go any smaller than that!
Light spreads out when passing through a small opening like the aperture on a camera and this results in loss of sharpness. The smaller the hole the more spreading you get, so there comes a point where stopping down a lens results in lower peak* sharpness. Due to compact lenses having (and requiring) shorter focal lengths, f/8 on a compact will result in a smaller opening than f/8 on an SLR, therefore you will get more diffraction.
*I said peak sharpness, as average sharpness can increase after the point where diffraction sets in due to increases in depth of field. However if you don't need the depth of field, try shooting at f/4 instead.
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