Well, I started something a year ago that I’ve slowly embraced in some of my bird photos. It has to do with the “glow” that comes with a slight about of overexposure when you have a minimum of highlights to “blowout.” Last year it was strictly by accident but I loved the result so this year I’m trying to do it on purpose.
It’s really pretty simple. I set the camera (D5 or D500 only) to overexposure to either +1/3, +2/3 or 1 stop. Now with +1/3, the camera does a great job with the highlights and shadows. You move up to +2/3 and it does a good job and at +1, you gotta be careful as it tends to protect shadpw detail letting more highlights blow out. I’m getting pretty good at reading the light and the camera’s responce when doing this. But it’s not perfect so for my and telling stories with exposure, it’s still a brave new world.