Question: I sometimes find I want to photograph a room showing the view outside the window. This is tricky — either you adjust the shutter speed so that the the window is so bright you can see no detail, or the room looks very dark and gloomy. 

Are there any techniques I can use to get the best photo showing as much as possible of both room and view? 

My camera is a Sony Nex3, and for this sort of thing I usually use it with an elderly Pentax-M 1:2.8 / 28mm manual focus lens with an adaptor, although I would be prepared to buy another (cheap manual!) lens.

Answer: 
A very easy one: Wait until dusk or dawn to take the photo.
Set camera to it's MANUAL MODE and walk over and set the exposure (shutter, aperture, and ISO) to the scene outside the window (just what you see out the window and no interior).

Set your flash to AUTO or FILL. Move to a position where the flash will not reflect (from a window, mirror, hanging photo, or any other reflective surface) directly back at the camera. Take the shot. 

Evaluate the photo on your camera's LCD screen. If the interior is a little darker than you want, increase the flash output. 

I have used this method on both DSLRs and Point & Shoots (with MANUAL MODE ability). While I have gotten very good results using JPEG files out of the camera, the best ways to deal with this type of photo is to shoot it in RAW where you have much greater post editing ability.

[![From a resort shoot that I did using a Nikon D200 and an Olympus XZ-2 a couple of years ago. Both cameras worked very well using this method.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qFmVl.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qFmVl.png)