Originally posted by bobloadmire you can tell it gets more in focus in the middle of the picture and starts to blur out again
Um, are you familiar with the concept of depth of field (DOF)? Pictures taken at the focal lengths and and apertures you were using are *supposed* to only be in focus in the middle, with areas in front of of behind the subject increasingly out of focus. Looking at your shot, that't pretty much exactly what I see - focus point looking as sharp as can reasonably be expected of a consumer zoom at maximum aperture, the rest out of focus exactly as *any* lens will be at that focal length and aperture.
Several of the pictures also exhibited shake - tripod must have wobbled or something. Check out #15, #18, #19, #20, and #21, for example. You can clearly see the "ghosting" that was presumably caused caused by camera movement. Unless perhaps it was caused by wind blowing the grass?
The picture that seems most questionable to me is the one of the pool with the unoccupied lifeguard chair, where nothing seems in focus. But I'd attribute that one to a fluke of the focusing system, as nothing else seems terrible out of line.