Lighthouse - first attempt

[wsbII]

Hello,
So I took this shot recently at sunrise on a very foggy morning. I was setting up and this was my last test shot, then re-adjusted, and the light stopped :{ So this last test shot I tried to do some minimal PS work to get the image I was going for. My intent was to shoot the lighthouse, capture some deep blues in the background, and get the beam as it radiated outward. The image and EXIF are below. My struggle is to get the image to be not so dark, but maintain the deepness of the sky and better capture the light. The light ended up being very overexposed,but I coudn;t figure out how to avoid that with the darkness of the scene. I didn't meter, just used test shots to get the right exposure length with the set up I wanted (set up at f16 and set the manual focus to capture hyperfocal). Any insight into how I could have better met my objectives would be appreciated (balance the blues, with the beam and be able to get the beam to appear to be radiating and capture the beam and not just the source light).
Thanks!
Bill



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Exposure 40
Aperture f/16.0
Focal Length 22 mm
ISO Speed 100