Directly shooting in to the sun issues.

[ethan]

I recently spent two afternoons trying to perfect a shot of the sun "seeping through" a couple of Acers in a shaded area. The problem I had was one in which the excessive brightness blew the sky and silhouetted the foreground. I shot in raw and so was able to bring the foreground back but am still unable to do anything about the blown highlights. I tried using fast shutter speeds and ND filters but the improvement was almost insignificant. Is there anything else to try when shooting in situations like this? On this occasion I was unable to shoot with the sun behind me etc.

 

[ethan]

I'd got no chance then as I wanted to retain some of the shadows
Overexposed sky and underexposed foreground.

 

[ethan]

A combination of everything suggested above. I didn't have any stacked grads on me at the time which sucked and going later would have helped. Still I'll keep going back throughout the year.