Hello chaps. I was wondering if you could give me some help when it comes to shooting land with sky.... My problem, is that when I want get the sky matched to a similar light level/brightness on the preview LCD screen, and have roughly half the photo with land (and half sky), the land becomes too dim, and when I tilt the camera down to get more land (and get the right colour and light levels for it), the sky becomes too white instead of blue and the edges of the trees on the landscape are not clearly defined and are sort of cut off. I've read my manual cover to cover, but I can't seem to find a way without compromising one or the other, so fiddling with the exposure manually works for the entire view not for half the screen etc. I use a Canon Digital Ixus 500 , 5megapixel camera (full quality settings)

Thats a really tricky problem. What you will most likly have to do is one of three things (that i can think of)
1) expose the picture so neither one is really perfectly exposed, but you get both decent
2) take two exact pictures one exposed for the sky, one for the ground. Then using photoshop mesh these two shots together using the one that is exposed properly for both areas
3) (something i doubt you can really use by looking at your camera) Get a lens filter like a gradulated filter or perhaps a polarizer might help alittle. A gradulated filter lets more light through one end and gradually blocks the light like sunglasses do.

Ah! Thank you very much. I like the sounds of options 2 and 3. I think I'll have to go for 2. I wish I had a better camera for 3) ---certainly something I shall consider should I decide to get a canon EOS in future! Just wondering, does this problem arise for many cameras like mine or is it a common theme as far as compact cameras are concerned?

It would be a problem with any kind of camera you have weither you have a point and shoot, or a high end pro camera (i assume). That is why there is filters out to help with it.

Milo's suggestions are pretty much the best advice you can get. It's a problem with all cameras, though film to a lesser extent than digital. Film has a slightly better natural range, and digital can't cope as well with as many different levels of light.
If the photo isn't something I want to spend a lot of time on (and that's most of them, I'm lazy), I'll expose for sky detail. This way, the ground may be underexposed, but fixing underexposure in software (photoshop) is quite easy. If you overexpose something, it's next to impossible to pull any detail out of it later (so white sky is very bad).
If you really want the photo to look right, you'll need to use Milo's option 2 or 3. I did a tutorial (linked here) on the method I've used in past to blend two images to get better sky detail. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of a graduated neutral density filter to fit an Ixus, so I think you're stuck doing digital corrections.

That's an excellent tutorial xentrik! Thanks! :)

You know how sometimes people laugh when you leave your finger next to the flash, and the picture comes out with your finger right in the middle of it? Well sometimes that can be used as an advantage. When the light is too bright, adjust your finger so that it blocks some of the suns rays, creating just enough dimness to get both the sun and the ground in beautiful colors

Here's a small tip - something I do quite often and it works quite well - use one focus point and focus right on the horizon. Also use aperture priority as you will get the best depth of field. :) Patti