In addition to all the good advice from these skilled people, I would like to suggest that you Google the phrase, "dynamic range bracketing". This should trigger the usual torrent of information one gets from Google. You will find that all films/digisensors have ranges of luminance they can capture and all are not the same. Indeed film and digital also differ in the way they capture illumination. The bottom line for me has been "bracketing", a procedure by which you can capture the scene several times at several exposures to capture the entire lumination range in (hopefully) 2 frames with overlapping intensity ranges. In the "bad old days", I combined the two frames optically. This was a migrane-producing experience each time I did/attempted it. With digital, it's much easier. With digital film scans, it's possible, even doable. With a digital camera having a bracketing feature, it's easy. A good photo editor, of course, is required. I use Photoshop and there are others that also work well to combine the frames. I've solved this problem many times over the past 10-15 years with much more success in the past 5 with digital cameras. Best of luck and I'm looking forward to your improved results no matter which way you choose to tackle the problem. ArnieC