How to handle the contrast range

[CMetivier]

In your note, you said "At that time I didn’t know how to handle the contrast range caused by the sun on the left." Almost two years later, how do you handle it ? Do you use filters, Photoshop afterwards, do multiple frames ? I would appreciate to get some good tips on how to handle this frequent situation.

[mcclurec]

There are probably people here that have a better answer to that than I do but the technique that I am most comfortable with at the moment is to expose multiple shots for the different areas that I want detail in. There is an excellent description of the process at http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/blended_exposures.shtml. A good example of were it worked for me is my San Diego Christmas photo that is three separately exposed panoramics that were then blended together. One for sky, one to maintain lighting definition and one for low light detail. When I was shooting it China, I hadn’t gotten out of the one shot, one picture mode yet. Another technique that caan work well is illustrated by the workshop done by Richard Birkett (merpb) on the Guarding Big Ben image by Dave Pastoriza which creates a duplicate layer, changes the mode to multiply, created layer mask (hide all) paint over (reveal) the selected area to darken, duplicated again to darken more. I grew up with the zone system so the blending system makes move sense to me and fits my way of understanding the light / medium relationships. Hope this helps. BTW, the luminous-landscape has many other good tutorials on a wide rang of subjects with good links too.