Tree and street lights

[shooter560]

I've found a tree that when wet and looked at from the right angle has a yellow/orange street light right in the middle of it, the branches due to the rain look like a massive spiders web with the light at the centre, however as much as I want to try to take a pic of this in the dark I can't for the life of me think how I can do it without having the lamp burn out the pic so much so that I won't be able to see the branches. I've tried a daytime shot but it doesn't have the same desired look.

Any suggestions like filters or whatever gratefully recieved

 

[18%grey]

You could take 3 or 4 exposures to cover the different light levels and then blend them together. (HDR)

 

[shooter560]

I had wondered about HDR, but call me old fashioned but I really love natural look pics over edited ones, though if thats the only option thats what it needs to be.

 

[AndyB]

Difficult without seeing the scene but If you want to get detail in the tree you will need to over expose the light a bit. Maybe meter from the light and knock out a stop. Chances are you'l still end up losing the branches anyway.

Best bet is to meter for the light and get that part right and then use a very small amount of flash to catch the tree. You can always play with shadows/highlights in Photoshop to get a better ballance afterwards.

 

[18%grey]

I had wondered about HDR, but call me old fashioned but I really love natural look pics over edited ones, though if thats the only option thats what it needs to be.

There is nothing new about this, I used to combine a couple of 35mm slides or negatives to get a correctly exposed print. It's just a lot easier now with software.