Japanese cranes in their mating ritual

The Japanese cranes have a unique and intriguing mating ritual. I photographed these birds on the island of Hokkaido in Japan with a Canon 500mm f/4 telephoto. When shooting white on white, I make no exposure compensation. This means the whiteness of the scene causes underexposure in my images, and in so doing all of the highlights in the pictures are protected. In post-processing, I lighten the photos just enough to produce a good exposure while retaining as much detail and texture as possible. Some photographers disagree with this approach because they say a majority of detail information is to the right of the histogram. I counter with the fact that none of my snow images in 2005 are ever overexposed with a loss of detail. In addition, the relatively small amount of underexposure doesn't cause any kind of serious increase in noise. My settings were 1/2000, f/11, and 800 ISO. The only thing I did in post-processing, besides adjust the exposure, was eliminate a slight bluish cast due to the shade conditions photographed with daylight white balance.