Meet Morgan and Olivia (my first real image using my 50mm f1.8)

[theantiquetiger]

Morgan is my girlie girl. She is all about the dolls, make up, and anything pink. She has several dolls she plays with, but Olivia is her baby!!! I think she is going to walk down the isle with her.

As for my shot, I find the eyes are still a little soft as well as the face

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7011/6611716483_3d8dc012ae_z.jpg

[Bambi]

I quite like this portrait- the composition and colour are lovely. I like the bokeh as well. Mad Aussie did a tutorial on how to sharpen eyes using layers which I think you would find useful here.
Is this the new 50???

[Mad Aussie]

Lovely pose and smile. Dolls eyes are sharp suggesting you missed the focal point of Morgan's eyes. Are you using a single AF focal point in your viewfinder? If so, you shouldn't be missing the eyes.

I can also see noise on her face which suggests under-exposure. With a 50mm prime of f1.2 or 1.8 you really should be able to get the exposure better. However, although you seem to have chosen several light sources (which shows you are thinking) the overall dynamic range (difference between brights and darks) was too much here and caused hot spots even though areas like her face was too dark. Either that or you used an ISO that was too high.
With portraits, try to stay at ISO 100 - 200 ... 400 if you really, really have to. Make the light work for those ISO's, not the other way around.

[theantiquetiger]

Yes, it was under exposed but I had to try and save this one. It was a staged but candid shot. All I have to say is "smile, Morgan" and she will strike a pose.

Plus I want to keep it to study my progression of the use of the 50mm

[susan]

She is quite a cute little model! Both of your girls are! It will be so fun watching them grow and seeing you grow as a photographer as well.

[Iguanasan]

Some great tips for getting better but as a dad all I can say is you will love photos like this for like forever! We always strive to be technically better and better but I think the favourites of the year thread has shown us that the moments we capture are more important than the technical quality. That being said, if you can capture a moment like this with excellent technical results it will make the moment even more powerful.

[Marko]

I agree with MA - this image is underexposed.
If the quantity of light is not sufficient, your shots will regularly be underexposed. This is why the histogram is so useful...because it's GRAPHS the exposure curve. All you need to do is look at the histogram.

It doesn't matter what lens you use...if the quantity of light is too low the shot is always underexposed...especially when shooting people because there is a minimum shutter speed that you need to use or the shot will be blurry.

Another thing to keep in mind when dealing with exposure is a normal scene versus a non normal scene. This scene is NON normal because of all that backlight which tricked the sensor into underexposing this image.

A normal scene has a much more even distribution of tones. LOOK for and those scenes in advance and your exposures will be far more accurate.

Hope that helps - Marko