Mini-Shoot: Cotton Candy Girls

[Alliecat]

Alliecat, I don't have a tripod yet but I definitely need to get one! I had my white balance set on "incandescent" for this one; I may try auto next time. And I didn't realize eosure length could affect depth of field; good to know!

It doesn't affect it, exactly. But they are related.
For a given shot, you are letting "X" amount of light into the camera.
The things that affect how much light gets in, are a) how wide your aperture is, and b) how long the shutter is open.
Aperture (the size of the hole in the lens that the light goes through) affects your depth of field. That's the "f" number on the camera. The smaller the f number, the bigger the hole is -- so f3.5 is a bigger opening than f8, for example -- and lets in more light. AND, the smaller the f number, the LESS depth of field you get. So you will get less of the depth of the scene in focus at f3.5 than you will at f8. If you're shooting something fairly flat, you can go with a small f stop number and small depth of field. If you have, say, an outdoor scene and you want as much into the background in focus as possible, you want to use a bigger f-stop number, say f22, which will give you more depth of field.
BUT, aperture and shutter speed are reciprocal -- if you need "X" amount of light for a good eosure... if you reduce one of those things, you have to increase the other.
So if you use a small f-number (big aperture) you are letting in a lot more light, so to keep from over-eosing, you've got to shorten your shutter speed. If you use a bigger f number for more depth of field, say f22, that little hole lets in way less light than, say, f4. So to keep from undereosing, you have to make the shutter speed longer. The "right" amount of light makes the best eosure, and you adjust each of those settings to keep the right amount of light going into the camera. More light for a shorter time = less light for a longer time.
Does that make sense so far...?
It was so much simpler with film, where the camera had a set series of f-stops, and you knew how many stops you were changing, but with digicams it seems really random, and there are a lot of partial-stop settings. The camera figures this out, but I find the numbers just weird.
Once you "get" the reciprocity thing, you can compensate for low light or depth of field by changing one setting or the other. Sometimes you want a small DOF because you want an out-of-focus background. Sometimes you want the whole scene in focus.
Having greater DOF will help if you don't get the focus exactly on the point you need -- most of the doll will still be adequately in focus.
So if you have some low light indoors, and you want all of your dolls in focus, you need to use a small aperture for that greater DOF... but that means you need a longer eosure to let enough light into the camera. And that's where the tripod comes in. With a solid tripod you can use a really small aperture, get really deep depth of field, and set an eosure for, say, half a second, or a whole second, or whatever, that you couldn't hand-hold and have it sharp.
OMG, didn't realize long that got; sorry. I hope some of that helps. Definitely keep shooting!
(And if you had only incandescent lamps on, your colour balance should've been OK. Was there daylight from a window too? The camera should be able to manage with "auto".)