modern sensor capture an astonishing dynamic range, namely some sony sensors or canon with magic lantern’s dual iso feature.
this is in a range where the image has to be processed carefully to display it in pleasing ways on a monitor, let alone the limited dynamic range of print media.
example images
use graduated density filter to brighten foreground
using the graudated density iop works well in this case since the horizon here is more or less straight, so we can easily mask it out with a simple gradient in the graduated density module. now what if the objects can’t be masked out so easily?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.darktable.org/2016/08/compressing-dynamic-range-with-exposure-fusion/