Use your depth of field preview button if you have one, and view it in
live view mode. In the old days you could only look through your view
finder which was okay if you had a bright day, but if it was darker it was
difficult to see what was in focus. Not any more since now you see it on
a brighter, larger view screen. Plus you can use the magnification factor
to check for ultimate sharpness.
Like Fish mentioned some camera's require one to use the f8-f11 range, newer
ones may require even lower (f 5.6) which can cause issues because if one needs
maximum sharpness from the front bottom edge to the top edge of the scene in
a photo and cannot use for example f 21 or higher like in the old days of film
because of diffraction, what is one to do?
Well this is when focus focus stacking can be helpful in some cases, and it allows
you for example to use f5.6 which is the sharpest focal point on my Canon
14mm to achieve incredible sharpness through out the photo. Here is a video
which explains the basic's for this technique:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqAXR94X0T8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Another issue in the scene your describing is the dynamic range which is
the difference between the brightest point and the darkest point in a scene.
The human eye can see over 20 f-stop equivalents while the best camera
according to DXO is currently the D800 at 14.4. So what you see in the
brighter area and in the shadows will be different than what your camera
can record (shadows can be lifted extremely well with the D800).
You will have to meter one/several shot for the brightest part and one/several
for the darkest and then combine them in either on of the available HDR
Software, photoshop (exposure bracketing) or if your camera has in camera
HDR as some do, though they only produce a "jpg" which may be okay for you, but
I personally want mine to be a "raw" format because of all the info that is lost.
Of coarse this will only work with a static subject otherwise ghosting will be an
issue, though some small movement is acceptable in some scenes.
Here is another video explaining the basics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjtDZdwbBdo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
If you have any question PM me, will be happy to help.