yes... while i shoot aperture priority + auto ISO most of the time... i constantly adjust by dialing in or out exposure compensation.
i do shoot manual + auto ISO as well.. but since it still uses the meter, i am constantly adjusting for a given situation using exposure comp.
and of course, i was protecting the whites whenever i could.
Thank you for your reply. I haven’t seen any loons locally, although I think we may get them in the winter. But we do have a good population of skimmers, which have black wings and heads and white bodies. I find getting the exposure right on birds with a combination of white and black feathers to be especially challenging when I’m trying to catch them in flight. The light is changing rapidly as the bird moves, but one has to guess as to the correct amount of compensation to set well before making the shot as there is no time to do so when a bird flies by.
I wish Nikon would come up with a metering mode which would automatically reduce exposure to eliminate blown highlights. With the new autofocus system, I now rarely miss focus. The most common reason I’m forced to discard a shot is blown out highlights, even though I’m routinely dialing in a good amount of negative compensation for light colored subjects. In any event, it is useful to hear how other photographers address the problem.