Thanks Brian, the best results I have ever had have been in natural light this was taken the same way, no lighting just bright sunlight.
The bottom of the feather is cropped because its standing upright in a blob of blutack (other products are available) with a white card behind it, other than that I gave it a little exposure compensation about +2,
but have a play its not an exact science. In PP increasing the whites, contrast etc as much as you can without losing definition of the object, which is the tricky bit.
Using flash is possible but very tricky, you tend to get shadows unless of course you have enough flash guns to cover all angles.
Hope that is of some help, as you can tell I wont be writing any books on the matter anytime soon