Four o'clock high

[Mad Aussie]

How could I not blow out the sun and still have detail in the foreground?

Without resorting to HDR ... nothing really. You could meter off some spot that was very bright but not bright enough to kill all dark detail and then recover some of that in post later but it's always going to be a compromise. And without something like a ND Grad (and even then perhaps) there was always going to be a blown out section of sky in this photo I think.

[malechi]

I think the blown out sky adds to the image. Give it a biblical feel to me. No the photo is not technically correct but I really had no time to think about that. I saw the bird perched in the tree and new he was going to fly very quickly and as he did, I shot. Sometimes that split second is all you get.

[Marko]

I appreciate the Critique. Yes, the sky is blown out and I can't get that back in post. If I didn't shoot immediately, I would have missed the bird. Shot in Aperture priority. Just a question, what would you have metered off of for this shot? To me personally, I know the sun was right there so I would expect that to be blown out. I didn't have a ND filter or any filter. I just had my D300s and a 50mm lens. How could I not blow out the sun and still have detail in the foreground?

Ma is right there was nothing you could have done to have detail in both sun and foreground without HDR. And don't get me wrong....I still like this shot.

If this were mine, I would have probably underexposed the sky at the time of exposure. I likely would have used the camera recommended exposure and used exposure compensation (on the negative side) if needed. That would have made the foreground darker, but for me most of the interest is not in the foreground anyway.

I think if you burn the top left edge and the left edge, the blown out sky will be less distracting. Hope that helps - Marko