Dark Photos ?

[Plato]

Here are two examples of what the OP is talking about (emailed to me because he couldn't host them)





Personally they don't look that bad to me in terms of darkness - the faces could use brightening up a tad, a bit of fill flash should help out with this regard.

My gut feel is that the subject distance is too great for fill flash. If PP is not an option, it might be necessary to adjust the exposure a bit which, unfortunately, will overexpose the scenery.

 

[o_O]

The bright sun reflecting off the water is throwing off the meter. If you want to expose for faces in shadow you need to meter skin in shadow, You can do this by metering off your hand in shadow. Read this and you'll understand why it's happening
GoingManual.com ::

Increasing the exposure to match an underexposed face is going to overexpose the background (edit: plato beat me to it!). Really the solution is to take the shots when the scene is evenly lit and the sun is behind the shooter. This in turn has it's own problems of squinting eyes, but in this scene they are having so much fun they probably don't care if the sun is in their eyes.

The hit and hope way in auto modes would be to bump up the exposure compensation. Fill flash would help but the distance is quite far so on camera flash may not be powerful enough to help.

Understanding how to choose the shutter speed based on the action in your shot then choosing the aperture and ISO to gain your exposure setting will help fix the blur too. The second half of this page should help with that.
GoingManual.com ::

 

[annamel]

Thank you for your help. I will read the going manual links and let ya know how it turns out. Me being the teacher i will need to learn it before i teach it to her. lol
Thanks again
will hang around and read up on some threads any you would request.

 

[o_O]

You're welcome. I would suggest your wife downloads and reads the going manual ebook. It's written very much for beginners who aren't getting the most out of their expensive cameras. If you understand how to do the manual stuff then you know when it's appropriate to use the semi-auto modes and exposure compensation.

Understanding exposure by Brian Peterson is also a very good read.

Best of luck teaching your wife! Sounds like dangerous territory.