My brother warned me that the problem with the zoom lenses they put in these compact cameras is that they're optimized for the most wide angle and the most zoomed state, and in between the quality is worse. I only just started to find out what this actually means for my camera, after I got a series of images zoomed to 2 times the widest setting, with 5.6 aperture, that focus only on the front of the church.

I'll have to do further experiments to learn how this camera works. As in, I'll have to find out if I set the focus wrong here or it just really doesn't have enough depth of field, and in general, to find out what the limits of this lens system are and how to get good photos.