In the snow redux, redux

I went to the Columbus Zoo Monday to find out if I could use my camera's exposure compensation feature effectively. There wasn't a heck of a lot of snow on the ground, but the prairie dogs were good test subjects.

In this photo, I added one increment, or "stop," of exposure compensation:

Black-tailed prairie dogs, photographed with +1 stop exposure compensation.

 There is no exposure compensation in this shot:

Black-tailed prairie dogs, photographed with no exposure compensation.

Snow dominated the camera's automatic exposure system. The camera perceived a bright scene and reduced the amount of light that hit the image sensor to get a "correct" exposure. However, based on the photos from my previous trip to the zoo, I figured the image would be too dark (underexposed). I added one stop of positive exposure compensation to make the scene brighter over all and render the prairie dogs close to their actual color. The trade-off is a loss of detail in the snow, but that's okay because I was interested in the prairie dogs and not the snow. I call my test a success.