Shoot at a better time of day if you can. Dial in some negative exposure compensation if you can to reel the sky back in. It may shadow the building a bit, but you can pull shadow details up right in the cameras on Nikons, or later with photo editing tools. Or use a grad ND filter of about 2-stops and you might not need to do a thing. Everybody is all about shooting RAW, doing HDR, yadda yadda, and nobody thinks about grad ND filters anymore. I use them all the time. A circular polarizer might help too.
Or shoot film, which is what I've been doing lately. :mrgreen: Depends on the film you're using, but negative print film commonly has a huge shoulder for highlight control which helps prevent the sky blowing out to pure white like it does all the time on digital. In nearly 30,000 DSLR photos not once have I ever seen a lighter pale blue sky and very light clouds like in this photo.
Nikon F100 with Fuji Superia 400 Xtra print film.
That was taken mid-day, the worst possible time for any scenic shooting with very harsh light, and NO circular polarizer or grad ND filter, and film handled it in my newbie hands just fine. On digital it would have either blown out the sky to pure white, or I would have had to dial in so much negative exposure compensation that the trees would all be shadowed and dark. The proper "photographic" solution is a grad ND filter or a circular polarizer though.
