ok there are a couple different ways to take a picture like the one you have displayed and maintain some foreground detail. The incamera method would be to get a graduated ND filter. This is a filter that is tinted on one side and gradually fades to clear on the other side. So for the shot above you would put the tinted side over the sky and clear side on the ground. This will balance the exposure of the scene more and hopefully enough that the camera can capture the entire dynamic range in one shot.
Another way to do what you are asking is to take several different photos of different exposure and then merge them together as an HDR (high dynamic range) photograph. This requires some special software to merge the photos together and also ideally you have a good tripod to keep the camera in the same spot.
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Rex K
The view from my "office" doesn't suck. 
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