Todays pics, not convinced!

Hi all, some CC needed again i'm afraid.
Popped out to a local park today with the girlfriend to get some pics as had an hour spare and the weather was surprisingly pleasant.

Got the following pics, (and plenty more, the 'best*' of which are on my Flickr)

Now they are mostly sharp (to my eyes) and seem exposed correctly on my admittedly non-calibrated screen but they just dont jump at me as any good. Must say not impressed myself so any pointers as to what i could be doing to improve?
Most were with the 50-200 tripod mounted (though at iso 400 purely because I had forgotten I had been in low-light last time I had used the camera! Doh!). I don't see that as the problem - more composition issues to me












The only pic I ended up happy with was this one (out of about 60 odd), which was a quickly improvised shot where I laid the tripod down to about 15 degree's, quickly framed and focused and clicked off a shot...

I like the secon one but I'd get rid of the two heads on the right. I think they all look a little flat but easily tweaked in Levels like this:




Ken

ken, what levels adjustment have you applied ? im asking because i also have a 50-200 . thanks, tim.

I have to 50-200 too and I dont think it is a particularly 'flat' lens but anyway, I moved the right hand slider along to meet the curve and then moved the middle one to get the most pleasing result. All done by eye I'm afraid.

I think the picure I tweaked and the one of the yellow flowers are just slightly underexposed, I wish people wouldn't strip off the metadata

Thanks for the comments Ken, and yes the levels did need a tweak, I hadnt PP'd any of those shots - though i usually do have to. It appears my body does suffer the 'standard' underexpose issues that i've read about for the 10's - I take it that theres a setting hid somewhere whereby i can permanently set the camera to +1ev and then forget about it? will this suit general shooting or will i have to look at custom setting for each occasion?

Thanks Tel.