Finding the focus point

What mode were you on in shooting these pics?

(ie something like "program auto exposure (ae)",  aperture mode, shutter mode, full auto?)

google on "depth of field" 

 you will get results from very techy to very illustrated.

I think that will help

Focus and recompose using center focus point is the answer. 

It shouldn't matter which exposure mode you use (AV, TV, M... even P/green square, unless those last two limit your focus choices). AV is probably the workhorse exposure mode for most of us professionals shooting for print, btw. 

The way AF works though requires some contrast in the area of the scene you want to focus on. That's why solid colors/textures can be difficult to get AF to lock onto.

Work on manipulating your depth of field using manual then transpose that to your different auto modes. There is so much to learn by letting  go with some of the technology .  Shutter speed, aperture and film speed all affect film quality or individual options to get the shots you need.

Read  Joy of Photography for good basic understandings of film capture

Did you take another run at it Trish. For starters, why not look at your old shots on the computer and see what aperture your camera was using for those shots.Do you understand the relationship between aperture and depth of field? The more open the aperture (smaller number) the shorter your depth of field will be. So try it in Aperture priority mode. Set your aperture smaller like f22 and see what happens. You may find that you get blurring from camera shake as your shutter will have to be slower, so turn up your ISO and or use a tripod (even the wind blowing on the flowers will blur them if your shutter is too slow). Your lens is only physically capable of so much, you may find that you just can't get it all in focus, but if you can, that's how you will do it.

All the above advice is good but to summarize:

1) Most DSLR cameras have a manual or "M" focus setting, so consider using that when there is this kind of issue. 

2) Most DSLR cameras have at least three default focusing settings.  One is the typical point it and shoot and the camera will do the rest.  Another pinpoints (center focusing) for focusing and the third allows you to frame your shot yet move the focusing point.  This is great for those tripod shots.

3) Most cameras allow you to point it at your subject and hold the focus by pressing down lightly on the button, and then (after you move the camera to frame the shot) press all the way down to take the shot.

4) Rarely a prime lens needs "tuning", and I don't think that is your issue.  Some modern DSLR cameras allow you to adjust for front or back focusing lenses, but again this is rare.

5) Depth of field is a biggie when taking good photos, and articles on this subject and DoF charts can be found all over the Internet.  A quality lens may cost more because it allows for a greater out of focus blur (bokeh) and is still sharp wide open.  Sometimes you want everthing sharp, and sometimes you want the background blurred.  That is why newpaper and sports photograpy is often times subject sharp and background blurred.

Below are two handheld shots, both using the "center focus" option. On the first shot I simply pushed the shutter release button half way down until I heard a beep (meaning it was in focus), framed the shot holding the button half way down, and then took the photo.  In the first photo the background is an ugly chicken wire fence so it was shot wide open to blur the background.  If I had a longer lens with me you wouldn't see the chiken wire, but that wasn't the case.  The second shot needed two subjects in focus, while trying to blur the background so it was shot two stops from wide open (by my son for a scouting merit badge).  Neither of these are "money" shots, but they are examples of the above and suitable for our purposes.

Last idea: Go to www.500px.com and "search" for the type of photo you are trying to take (e.g., "stars streaking"  or "fireworks" or "flowers", etc.  Then find some photos you are crazy about and see what shutter speed and aperature the photographer used.  500px is a great learning tool for me.

without yanking the EXIF data, I'm guessing your aperture was open pretty wide and the ISO is set high.

Take your ISO down to the lowest "normal" setting (your camera might go down to 100 with "low" settings below that.  ISO 100 is a very reasonable place to start.

The other thing you could do is close up your aperture and shoot (Higher f/ number).

The best plan of attack would be to take the ISO down and shoot a few shots at different f-stops (apertures) and see how DOF and shutter speed changes.

TC,

Last post (gotta get out of town).  See the chart below.

Once you have a good exposure (look at the histogram on your camera's LCD for starters) you can use a chart like this for an idea of relative exposures.  Looking at "9", f/22 at 1 sec. lets in as much light as 1/250 at f/1.4.  Same exposure, but a huge difference in depth of field.  Using the Av function of your camera shouldn't over expose the photo (your post above) if the shutter speed was fast enough (or, as suggested above, the ISO is too high).  In fact, your camera will automatically adjust either the shutter speed or aperture (depending upon what setting you use) for you.  There are good books written about every popular camera sold that have a wealth of information in them.

IS0 3200 is quite high. (My Lumix FZ47 ("pro-sumer" line) stops at 1600.  And i stop it before that most all the time..

 i think of ISO as "light sensitivity", so higher is good for low light. 

but of course it may pick up grains of dust as well.

"only as high as you need it" is probably a good heuristic

My suggestion: take the same shot ONLY changing you f stop, either in full manual mode or

whatever mode lets you change aperture, camera decides exposure time ("A" or aperture mode)

this will have a lot to do with "depth of field"  

The focus is part of it but I would suggest f stop is the larger part of what you are asking about.

http://digital-photography-school.com/aperture-and-shutter-priority-modes

It's helpful to understand how autofocus works in order to understand how (and why) it behaves a certain way ...

Depending on your camera, there are a number of auto focus sensors used to detect an object in focus.  On the consumer/prosumer DSLR's it ranges from 9 sensors anywhere up to 50 or so. The sensors are arranged in a pattern covering the view you see in the viewfinder.  The image below is the autofocus sensor array from a Nikon D7000 ..

If you don't do anything to change it usually ALL sensor points are active.  This is referred to as area mode or zone mode depending on your camera.  Usually, by default, the camera will pick the sensor point (or points) that covers the closest object in the viewfinder in order to focus the frame.

In your first shot, the closest object was the flower on the right.  In the second shot it's the flower in the center of the frame.

If you want the camera to focus on an object further back in the frame - a great technique for showing depth in your photos - you'll either need to focus-and-recompose or to select a different focus mode that let's you choose the focus point.

The beauty of Auto mode is that the camera makes all the choices for you.  The downside is that it rarely makes the right choice! 

I'm a Nikon shooter, so I'm not familiar with the Canon settings, but I would recommend digging through your manual to see how to change the focus modes and/or focus point.