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.

 

[Raymond Lin]

If you want the sun AND correctly exposed you will need fill light for the subject from either reflector or fill in flash.

 

[ethan]

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

 

[Raymond Lin]

I'd got no chance then as I wanted to retain some of the shadows.

Meter for the background, off camera flash to fill subject.

 

[And]

Small aperture, stacked grads, meter as Raymond suggests and shooting as early or late as possible for the softest light would be how I'd try (I don't own a flash).

 

[Minstadave]

Tripod and exposure bracketing? Only thing I can think of that will give you the dynamic range you're looking for.

 

[scamartist]

Multiple exposures to get the correct foreground and background then blend the layers in Photoshop.

 

[D.P.]

Tripod and exposure bracketing? Only thing I can think of that will give you the dynamic range you're looking for.

Bingo

 

[Hunders]

I use bracketing in these situations as mentioned. I find the HDR function in lightroom really good as you can make images look more natural and less HDR easily.


Mountbatten breakwater at sunset by Connor Hundley, on Flickr

 

[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.