Need some advice in high contrast area

[Pfxphoto]

I am heading underground for a shoot and could use some advice on settings. I am fine with just low light or just darker areas but this place is dark but has areas, rather large, where the light comes in fairly bright. What would be the best way to shoot this without blowing out the white and making the dark areas even darker?

I have a canon xsi and using a tamron F3.5 - F5 lens.

ANy suggestions I could try would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance.

[gjl711]

Sounds like an ideal place to shoot bracketed and combine the images. By exposing for the bright parts and the dark parts, both will be right for their conditions. There are other options like using a GND filter but those tend to work well only if the lighting is very different by side, either top light bottom dark, or left light and right dark or vice versa.

[PhotosGuy]

heading underground for a shoot BIG unanswered question: Public cave? Most of those places have light on the more interesting formations. Maybe you don't want/need to add light? Google is your friend:
Cave Photography: Getting Good pictures in Nature’s Darkroom (http://www.goodearthgraphics.com/showcave/photo.html)

And the Forum SEARCH isn't too shabby, either. I got 3 pages of links using a title search for caves.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=7452960&postcount=4