5 Photo tips (centered around the morning and daybreak)

Tip 1 (Think differently): Sunrise does not always mean shots of the sun rising, or shining over water, through clouds or over mountains. Look for other photos; look at people sitting on the beach with the sun rising, people going about their work (early morning), people having breakfast, or even more interesting shots such as steam (whether from natural sources, or from hot tea and coffee)

Tip 2 (Check White Balances): The white balances needs to be checked when shooting around sunrise. The light can have a orange-color tint to it, with a hint of red (although this changes rapidly as time passes). Even though you may have never have set the color profile to 'incandescent', this is a good time to change the white balance. Experiment with making this change, to see whether you start getting a slight blue tinge to your photos.

Tip 3 (Experiment with focus changes): For landscape views, you should normally have a small aperture (from f/8 to f/22 and higher), since you get more objects in focus (from close to the camera to objects much further away). However, for sunrise, you should experiment with having shallower focus by having larger exposures. This gets you more light, and shows you some interesting photos with some objects out of focus.

Tip 4 (Shooting water scenes early in the morning): Shooting early in the morning, especially over water, gives a bluish tinge to the entire scene. The cast of the photo changes to having a bluish tinge, and if you set a long exposure, you get more of the water flow (can give a very smooth look).

Tip 5 (Sun is pretty small): If you are looking to get a good photo of the sun at sunrise, the sun will show up as a small section of the photo. If you do want to get the sun being a much bigger part of the photo, then you will need to use a zoom lens (and the bigger the better). You might need to use a tripod as you move to a bigger zoom.