Let me start with saying the techniques already mentioned work quite well , on the other hand not in all situations the bird for example was shot with a nikon d7100 I could not go out and put a black piece of mat board behind him and could not wait till dark .This image was shot at mid day although he was in soft shadow I exsposed with spot metering the smallest spot I could use on the brightest area of the bird , this under exposed the background ,no ettr here known as expose to the right ,I do not subscribe to that technigue . I expose based on what I want to exspess to you . If you look close you will see a tadpole in his beak that was not a by chance moment , this is one shot in single shot mode waiting for the right image ..the flowers were shot at night , because they are night blooming Cereus but not flash to harsh , but with a pen light about 5 seconds each on a 30 sec exposure....niether needed but a little post production because I also shoot raw . I use CS6 but it could easily be done in the raw opperator that comes with your Camera . I understand these are unique situations but it reading and knoledge of what your camera is capable of .I come from a time when my instructor did everything he could in camera in in the film era , so he didnt have to do it in the darkroom . Our cameras are amazing today , I now own a nikon d810 , the d750 , and the new d850 have feature in common with my camera called highlight wieghted metering no more blown skies , I use it in daylight although designed for stage events , it has the ability to stop overexposure of highlights in an image , with the camera set at ISO 64 my dynamic range is at its highest and recovery of shadows is emence this is a direction our cameras are going thanks for reading , you need to take in all of the sugestions these people posted and use them all thoughout your time using your camera good luck..P.S the flowers were shot with a nikon d300 12.3 megapixels.

Years ago, a photographer, hired by Kodak to go from national park to national park giving slide shows of his work and offering tips on nature photography, gave this tip for flowers: use your hat (eg) to produce a shadow behind the flower, which will highlight the flower. His flower photos were almost always with a shaded background and it was easy to see the visual effect. Since I am bald, I always have a hat and have used his tip many times over the years. A helper is a help sometimes, but if using a tripod, I can usually manage alone. This has the advantage of not having to anticipate a photo op where you might not have a black board along. Or if you're backpacking and left your black board at home.