Ibrahim, here are some of the strategies/settings that I use to manage high black/white contrast problems.
Menu references are for my R5 but should be similar for your R7; perhaps, the 'page' number (2, 7, 3, 1 below) might be different.
- Highlight Tone Priority — Red Shoot 2 Menu
- Disable : OFF
- Enable : D+
- Enhanced : D+2
Choosing D+ or D+2 should improve gradation in the bright areas but will raise the minimum ISO to 200 and, perhaps, introduce noise into the darker areas.
I'd prefer to fix noise (on my computer) rather than deal with washed-out 'whites'.
- Histogram — Shooting Info Display — Red Shoot 7 Menu
- Screen Info Display
- Viewfinder Info Toggle Settings
Set screen and EVF so that a histogram is always displayed. On histograms "light is on the right".
When exposing guard against having white values so dominant that there's a mountain peak on the histogram's right margin. Because you have a histogram in the viewfinder, you'll be alerted to the problem and can overcome it by…
- Exposure Compensation — Customise Dials — Orange Custom Function 3 Menu
- Set one of your dials to adjust exposure compensation.
- My choice is the Quick Control Dial #1 (the dominant 'wheel' on the back of the camera).
- Many RF shooters prefer to assign exposure compensation to the Control Ring on an RF lens.
By assigning exposure compensation to a dial (or ring), you can quickly override the camera's choice of exposure — darkening or lightening by one-third, two-thirds or a full EV (exposure value) stop.
- Auto Exposure Bracketing — Orange Custom Function 1 Menu
Unfortunately, setting up auto exposure bracketing (on an R5) is seriously challenging; but it is the way to go.
Typically, auto exposure bracketing involves setting the camera to take a three-exposure burst — too dark, just right, too light.
Afterwards, you can choose which of the three to keep, or (this is the fun bit) combine the three images so that the maggie's white feathers are taken from the 'too dark' exposure, the black feathers from the 'too light' image and everything else from the 'just right'.
Arguably, this is the best way to photograph a magpie: just remember to tell it to keep still.
… David