Without flash it is nearly impossible to get a good exposure throughout the dynamic range when you have strong patches of sunshine. This was shot in raw and the recovery slider in Adobe Camera Raw was moved completely to the right to tone down the bright highlights from the sun. I also did a bit of shadow lifting. Too much shadow lifting and you wind up with a flat image. Adding fill flash (in the case of this image, internal flash) can greatly improve the dynamic range. Being able to control the strength of the flash is very helpful too. Click on "next" to see the result with flash.