Thanks for that, much appreciated, but you will have to explain 
Pleasure, I'm not an expert or anything, I just love taking photographs. Rodney explains RAW very well in his post - very similar to the way I think about blown highlights.
Another thing about shooting in RAW is that it is what the file looks like before the camera adjusts the white balance, and any other effects like boosted saturation or higher contrast that you've dialled in. Compact cameras normally do this for you, and the results might actually be quite attractive, but it doesn't give you any choice in the matter.
Some subjects, that are either white, or nearly black, or even worse black and white (zebra, black capped bulbul) are really only possible to photograph well in that golden hour early morning or late afternoon. My wildebeest are nearly always black blobs, or washed out grey when I try to shoot them at midday.
One thing I did when I started taking photos, was to shoot in aperture priority mode. The camera handles your shutter speed, while you have control over the depth of field. It gives you a really good idea of how the camera works, without overloading your brain with details. Also, using spot metering and checking what the camera thinks is the right shutter speed, is very interesting and gives you a good idea of what the camera sees as 'light' and 'dark'.
The learning curve is very steep, and I'm nowhere near plateau yet. At least I'm starting to grasp what I actually did wrong when I do get a 'booboo'
