Why did this happen

[Lois khalafalla]

I am very new to understanding photography, but love to take picutres. I took this picture using macro setting on my point and shoot. It is a fern. I was thinking the fern would be in focus and the background out of focus. It turned out the opposite. Why?DSC03438.jpg
Sony DSC - S730
Shutter speed 1/80 sec
aperture F/3.0
no flash
F number F/2.8
ISO speed ISO - 100

[dcclark]

It looks like your camera automatically chose to focus on the background. There are a few reasons why. Most likely, you were too close for the camera to focus on the fern, so it chose to focus on something that it could focus on. (Every lens has a "closest" distance at which it can focus.) Alternately, you may just have tricked your camera -- autofocus systems aren't perfect, and sometimes they guess wrong about what you want to focus on.

[Lois khalafalla]

Thanks. You are probably right about me being too close. Okay, I get it now. Thanks.

[teaking]

Your cameras Auto focus will also focus well on straight lines with high contrast so try to aim for edges of the leaf and re compose the shot with the half button press, You could also try focusing once then pressing the focus again so the camera has two attempts then re composing your shot

Thats all I can really chirp in with its all been covered