Shakey Loc: Traveling again to Norway and other places.

Darn, foathog, you beat me to it.

PhotosBySteve

Set the mode to Manual. Set the exposure mode to center weighted. Using your In-camera light meter point the camera to a area of the scene you want to be properly exposed (NOT the white or black dog or subject). Adjust your desired Aperture, Time Value and ISO for proper exposure, according to the light meter and/or historgram. Set white bale for the scene. Focus on the eyes. Take the picture.

DJO

White balance is function of, i.e determined by, the light source, not the subject. The very same is true of exposure. ( OK, OK-- I acknowledge that exceptions to these rules may exist, but in the greater scheme of things they would relatively rare and not applicable in this instance. ) Your best solution for THIS situation is a hand held incident light meter. Reliable and accurate incident light meters are now available at prices that most can afford.

Is a hand held incident light meter the best solution for EVERY situation? No, of course not. One common contraindication occurs outdoors when camera and subject are positioned in disparate lighting conditions and the distance between them would be impractical or impossible to traverse. Not outdoors (or indoors) photographing a dog.

Let the seething begin. This topic has been known to cause bickering ad infinitum.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Try using a single point focus/exposure point. Your camera will try to read the white dog as grey, and should expose it properly.

Mary Kate Loc: NYC

Yup, you can do all of that or buy German Shepherd.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

White balance has nothing to do with exposure - only the color temperature of the ambient light. Your exposure meter in your camera reads the amount of light bouncing off the scene. It then evaluates the exposure to render the scene as a medium shade of gray. If you are setting your focusing area to read the whole scene it averages the whole scene's light to give a neutral medium shade. If you set the camera to spot focus it uses only the spot to evaluate the light strength. So if you set the camera to spot metering and focusing mode, it will properly expose your white dog.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

[quote=Gene51]Try the following.

Set the meter mode to spot, aperture priority. Turn auto iso off.
If you are outside, set iso to 200, aperture to F8.
Dial in 1-1/3 stop plus compensation. Not doing this will result in a gray dog.

Actually you really want a gray dog, because underexposure is the only way you are going to show shading and detail in a white coat. (I do a lot of dog photography)

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Problem is the way meters "read" the scene. They are made to see everything in 18%grey or neutral grey. If you take a photo of a white wall it will turn out grey, a black wall--grey. Thats why snow often looks grey. They make grey cards for that reason. An 18% grey card should be sytandard equipment. Next time you take photos of the dog meter off a grey card (in the same light as the dog) and use that setting for the photo. You will be amazed at the result.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

[quote=CatMarley]

A gray dog would be underexposed. What you really want is a white dog with detail, which most cameras will produce with the method I described. Nearly 50 yrs as a photographer, including lots of pets, and a master's level understanding of the zone system is what I based my recommendation on.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

It's not a "problem" - it's a characteristic of the tool that must be understood and mastered in order to get consistently accurate results.

A white dog in bright sun metered with a gray card will likely exceed the camera's dynamic range, resulting in some blown highlights. Metering the brightest part of the scene in which you desire detail, then"placing" that reading in the correct "zone" (tonal level), by adding exposure, will ensure that you will not lose the highlights. This is a core fundamental principle of the zone system. Gray cards and incident meters are fine and good in average to low contrast light, or in studio settings where you have total control over the light. Zone system and reflectI've meters are perfect for outdoor settings.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

I would love to challenge you to a white dog photography contest! Unfortunately I have no white dogs at the moment. What I suggested is a whole lot simpler and worth a try anyway. Spot metering the white coat might give a bit too much shadow, but it is a lot easier post processing shadows to bring them up than blown highlights with which you can do nothing. On a dog's coat you are interested in the texture and detail, which you are going to get a lot more of by a little underexposure! I photograph show dogs.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I am always down for a challenge. :)

What do you do when you have a grouping of dogs, some white and others dark, or a border collie, dalmation, Alaskan malamute, siberian husky, American Staffordshire terrier, Bernese Mt. dog, collie or any other dog that has a mix of black and white? On a Bernese, I am pretty sure your approach will result in gray chest hair, and the black coat may have considerable noise. My suggestion will add about 1 stop more light, enough to place the value of the white areas in the proper zone, white with good highlights, and provide enough light to renderer the dark areas with good detail and less noise.

I am guessing that you haven't tried what I am suggesting. Before you dismiss it, give it a shot - you might be surprised. You don't need a dog to see if it works, just go out and shoot some zoo animals, birds at a lake, white flowers, or even a bride and groom. Once you try it and see the results your opinion may change, and your photography may improve as well.

Http://flickr.com/photos/gene_lugo/

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Of course when you cannot expose for the optimum and must make compromises, you do so. We are at the mercy of the limits of the dynamic range of our sensors, just as we were with film. With film, I always used to underexpose just a bit - for the same reasons. In printing it was possible to lighten the shadows and recapture some detail, but something blown to white was gone! In reality, very few white things are actually white. Because of shadows, textured white objects are always varying shades of gray with white highlights. Look at clouds.
Not dismissing your zone approach. The OP obviously did not understand the way the camera handles auto exposure. Once you understand that the camera is going to treat everything it sees in the chosen area as averaging to 18% gray. you have command of the situation, and can then apply compensation, or limit the selected area. Using spot metering on a white dog will give you an image that will save your detail, and you can brighten with post processing if you need to. In any case, while perfect exposure is always desirable, a little under is ALWAYS better than a little over.

scsdesphotography Loc: Southeastern Michigan

Here is how I handle the white dog situation. If time permits, I set a custom white balance using a lens cap designed for WB setting. I shoot in manual (in RAW). Using the camera's meter I set the exposure five clicks to the right of center (Nikon). This underexposes the scene somewhat, but eliminates blown out highlights. I bring up the image in Lightroom and make adjustments using the shadows and highlights sliders. The result is a white dog with good detail in the fur. As you can tell from the other suggestions made here, not shooting in manual, in RAW, makes getting a good exposure very challenging. By the way the exposure compensation dial usually doesn't work in manual mode on most cameras.

CharleneT Loc: South Carolina

Maybe a good contest would be dogs! We move to show off our four legged kids!