Putting the sky back

Winter in Melbourne can be a great time for photography, when the sun comes out! The low light puts the landscape into strong relief and enriches the colours, but at the same time that makes it a very hard task for your cameras light metering to make the correct decisions about exposure. So you tend to either end up with a nice blue sky and everything else in shadow or foreground detail and a washed out sky. So if you want detail in the foreground detail in your photo, maybe it will be best to get a light reading low (point the camera down a little and half press the button to set both focus and the exposure settings) then lift the camera (without releasing the button) and frame the photo and shoot (press down fully). Then is you want a blue sky (not everyone will bother) you can use on of the graduated tint/filters, such as the one in picassa, which you will find under the effects Tab, to put a light tint over just the sky. Graduated tints help keep the sky lighter near the horizon, and thus the sky stays natural looking.