To me? I used manual exposure, trial a few shots first to see what looks good on the display and then work from there in manual.
I use the Technicolor Cinestyle picture profile (mainly for video but it helps for photos, I'll explain).
I've started using the profile as you get a good balance of extended dynamic range on the LCD when previewing photos since even when shooting RAW the camera loads the jpeg preview which has the profile attached. This gives me an idea of what an image will look like after I've processed it as far as highlight detail and shadow detail goes when brought back if they are out by a stop or two.
Before cinestyle I was using the Faithful profile which was giving similar results but not as wide dynamic range.