First of all, Depack, thanks for reading this and posting your question!

Secondly, if your shot is straight from the camera, I'd say the exposure is right on!

As for your question about the 1/500s at f/8 being proper at ISO200 - that depends. As light intensity changes, so must the shutter speed/aperture at any given ISO. This compensation could be done completely with the ISO to keep the shutter and aperture unchanged. But this is usually not as easy as changing either the shutter speed or aperture opening.

Only if the light level is not changing can you use my earlier example of "sliding values" - 1/500s at f/8 being equivalent to 1/250s at f/11 and so on.

What is nice about using manual controls is that generally, outdoor lighting is pretty standard around our globe. So, I can tell you, on a bright sunny clear day, to preset your camera to 1/350s~1/500s at f/11 at ISO 400 (which I use almost 90% of the time) and your subject which is in direct sunlight would be properly exposed. Therefore, this exact same setting could be used if you were shooting city scenes under the same weather conditions.

Once you understand how to analyze and determine the light intensity/color falling on your subject, the better you can compensate for it. For example, when I walk through the forest, the light intensity falls anywhere from 1 1/2 stops to up to 4 stops from the bright sun condition. Knowing this, I am automatically adjusting my settings as I walk deeper into the woods even though I haven't even put the camera to my eye.

There are lots of advantages of going manual. The best being that it forces you to think in terms of light. And to have a great image, you need to first have great light quality (intensity, color, direction) even more than a great subject