billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

For me, this generally happens when I am exposing white birds like Great Egrets or even Great Blues, I generally stop down so I am 2 stops under exposed in manual settings. I generally just use a lower ISO until my meter shows me I am two stops under when pointing the lens at green grass or green foliage. Sometimes I will prefer 3 stops under for a really white bird.
I like to keep my shutter speed as high as possible for birds in flight and usually shoot wide open so again, I shoot at least 2 stops under or if I am only looking at White Birds I like at least 3 stops under.
The reason for metering green grass or green leaves is because it gives me about that grey card 18%.
Good luck and keep on shooting until the end.

anotherview Loc: California

Agree on the necessity of manually adjusting the exposure for a white subject.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

It depends upon whether I'm working in bright light or low light, photographing action or still life scenes, and what sort of depth of field I need.

I rarely use exposure compensation. I'd rather be in manual mode than use that, unless it's a one-off situation, or there's a lot of changing conditions in the scene and the current moment's composition requires it.

All that said, I work in raw capture mode most of the time, for maximum latitude. The histogram and "blinkies" are based off the JPEG preview image, not the raw, so on my camera, I have around a stop of over exposure latitude to bring the highlights of a raw file down. That's unless I'm already doing ETTR, and have consciously pushed the exposure by a stop or so.

JPEG use is a special case for me. I use JPEGs when I KNOW I have to supply images immediately, with zero time or budget for post-processing. And I generally don't record JPEGs unless the lighting is well controlled and within about a 5.5 stop contrast range.

philo Loc: philo, ca

I guess using auto ISO is the problem.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

If the picture is too extreme in dark to light you might try HDR. That will expand your dark to light capability.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Auto ISO, by itself, shouldn't be a problem. But, as asked in a few replies, the variables of what camera and what exposure mode are relevant.

My response didn't state, but applied to a manual approach where on my model EOS 5DIII, that is the way I offset the meter to the right of the 0-mark. That is, on this model and most older camera models, Auto ISO in Manual caused the camera to 'manage' the ISO to always achieve an exposure at the 0-mark of the meter. If instead, you were shooting a model that supports Exposure Compensation (EC) in Manual, you might find Auto ISO is more effective where you can set your aperture and shutter speed exposure parameters and then use EC to 'tell' the camera where to achieve the exposure relative (offset) to the meter's 0-mark. Then, any changes you make to either, or both, the shutter and aperture, the camera adjusts the ISO automatically to maintain the exposure at the same offset position on the meter.

EC always allowed for a an 'offset' exposure in the P / S-Tv / A models with Auto ISO. In those modes, if you saw an overexposed image, you'd just 'dial down' the exposure by turning the EC dial, letting the camera adjust the ISO and / or opposite exposure parameter to the shooting mode you're controlling.

FotoHog Loc: on Cloud 9

Shouldn't he rather buy a new camera? . . .

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

I find my images to turn out better when I control what I can with the lens first. The light entering the camera is the limiting factor which is the analog signal striking the camera sensor. The camera then uses its analog to digital processor to create the data stream so that the firmware can tweak it based on user settings. So...the better the "innie" the better the "outie".

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

I use EC. Changing your aperture changes your DOF, not a good option. Get to the lowest ISO you can. Also shoot to the right. (Move your histogram to the right by using EC, just don’t go too far) Remember that half of your information is in the first fstop and decreases by half each. Lightening images brings out the noise. Better to darken, as long as you have not blown out the highlights. Luminus Landscape has an excellent explanation and tutorial on this subject.

wham121736 Loc: Long Island, New York

Yes, lower the ISO first if possible. However, Aperture is not the driving decision for everyone or in every case. Sometimes shutter speed (think sports) is the driving decision, in which case after ISO, Aperture would be the thing to change. Am I missing something here?

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Actually the mistake I see quite often is people overdoing "protecting the highlights".

In almost every scene there are some "pure whites" that will cause a histogram to "pile up on the right" when exposure is accurate. The problem is many people try to avoid having the histogram even touch the right hand side, even though it should. As a result they are underexposing excessively... maybe a little, maybe a lot. Overdoing protecting the highlights means having to increase exposure in post-processing, which can lead to lower quality finished images... especially increases in digital noise.

Something that compounds this is working with uncalibrated computer monitors. Right out of the box, most monitors are too bright for proper image evaluation and accurate adjustment. If not calibrated, the user is inclined to think highlights are "blown" more than they are (if at all) and likely to bias their images too dark. They aren't aware of this until they make a print or see their image on a properly calibrated monitor. Then it's obvious the image is too dark.

Beyond monitor calibration, the trick is learning to see what's in front of you and judge how much or how little pure white is actually in the scene, then referring to the histogram and adjusting appropriately. Some part of most scenes have highlights with no detail... and nothing is ever gained by "over protecting" them! Often this is only learned with experience... by making mistakes, recognizing them and then making corrections.

It really doesn't matter HOW you make your adjustments. That's going to change depending upon your exposure mode. If you shoot strictly manual exposure, you can tweak any of the settings. If you're using any of the auto exposure modes, you'll need to use exposure compensation to override what the camera wants to do. There is no "right" exposure mode for everything.... M, M + Auto ISO, A/Av, S/Tv and even P exposure modes each have their uses, so it pays to know how to use them, even though most of us use one or another more often because it best fits our needs and/or is our preference. (I'm NOT including "full Auto" and "scene modes" like "sports", "landscape", "portrait", etc. here because those are a lot more than just exposure modes. They dictate other camera settings such as focus, frame rates and even the type of file that can be saved, usually don't allow exposure compensation and are something I personally never use and don't even have available on some of my cameras.)

MJPerini

If important Highlights are blinking they are getting too much exposure.
So you need to reduce it.
How you choose to reduce it can be accomplished several ways and each way is appropriate sometimes.
If you are shooting in manual mode you can use Aperture, shutter speed or Iso to reduce exposure.
If you are shooting in one of the semi automatic modes EC is the quickest way.
The easiest way to think about EC is as a way of telling the camera "You know the exposure you just picked for this scene---I'd like to give it This Much Less or More
It should work in AV, TV, P, even if you have auto iso set.

User ID

No. You’re thinking of a different forum.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Not always. "Blinkies" also can mean "this pure white highlight is correctly exposed, no adjustment is needed".

My point above is that in most scenes there actually should be some blinkies (if you have them turned on, or other types of warning if not). In most scenes there is some pure white that would cause the blinkies, be it a reflection, pure white clothing, sunlit snow or a cloud, a white car or a building painted white, or something else.

The trick is knowing what the blinkies (or other warnings) are telling you. What you need to watch for is if tonalities slightly below the purest whites, where there should be a little detail in a proper exposure, are showing an exposure warning. Then you know you're over-exposing.

I completely agree with the rest of your points...

User ID

Amen to whatever that was, I think ...