first shoot w/ my 50mm 1.8 II

[momof2girls07]

Took a few pictures of my girls using my canon rebel xti and just got the 50mm 1.8. wow. I don't like not having a zoom. gotta get used to that.

So they look dark to me...
ideas what I should set the settings at?

My older daughter was clapping her hands and caught her hand in the photo- haven't edited it out yet.

 

[Big Mike]

Cute girls!

The do look dark, but the background is nice and black. It's hard to tell why though. If you had the exposure in an auto mode, it probably would have been too light, but then if you edited it to make the background black, that would make the girls too dark. Or if you were using manual exposure, you might have just under exposed them...I don't know.

Are you shooting wide open (at F1.8)? It looks like your DOF is rather shallow. I like the effect on the third one, but in the other ones, it's leaving quite a bit out of focus.