Night shots, failure, please advise

[neuroanatomist]

Not sure if the 650D/T4i records focus distance. My T3i doesn't.
Edit: If it had been recorded, I believe it would be visible on Flickr, but it is not there, so I think it is not recorded at all

I don't think Flickr shows it. If you use something like Exiftool you'll see fields for Focus Distance Upper and Focus Distance Lower. I believe LR uses those to estimate a distance.

I'm sure your camera records it, assuming the lens supports it (and most Canon lenses do, including the 18-55mm and even some MF lenses like the wide TS-Es and the MP-E 65mm) - that info is used for the E-TTL II flash exposure calculation.