5 Photo tips for morning / sunrise photos

Tip 1 (Shoot beaches in the morning): Getting good shots of beaches, especially the play of water over the sand, is fun. However, in the harsh light, the whole scene tends to get a bit flattened. Shooting at the beach in the morning enhances the effect of the play of water and sand, and you can capture the texture of the sand particles much better. Plus, there is less chance of their being garbage being thrown by people, and less crowds.

Tip 2 (Dew laden plants): In the morning, plants look fresher, and the presence of dew on the leaves, and on the tips of the petals of flowers can give a great look. If you use a macro lens, the dew at certain angles combined with the slanting rays of the sun can shine.

Tip 3 (Inspiring photos): Photos of people exercising are always inspiring. Capturing the photos of people working out, jogging, or other such exercise when the sun is just coming up gives you a good collection of such photos. In addition, if you collect stock photos, the light can help hide the face while enhancing the outline of the human body.

Tip 4 (Shooting from a low height): Given that shadows in the morning are longer, and the contrast between the shadow and light is not as stark or sharp as it is in the daytime, you can get some great photos where there is a low height sun on the horizon, and long shadows on the ground.

Tip 5 (Take photos from inside): Consider yourself inside a room where the sun is just starting to enter throug the window. Go close to the window and look at what you see. If you do this on a regular basis, you will start to see some great scenes to photo. If you are near a garden or park, you will be able to see some potentially great bird photos, or you can see people going about a routine that you would not be able to see during the daytime, or you can get photos of the play of the sun over neighboring buildings or similar structures. Even a simple photo of the comparative darkness of the area around the window compared to emerging light outside can come out great.

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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.

5 Photo tips (centered around the morning and daybreak)

Tip 1 (Filters): Explore what camera equipment can do for you. For example, filters such as this Tiffen 62mm Graduated Sunrise Filter can help in making some beautiful sunrise photo.

Tip 2 (Use software): This may seem a bit odd, but if you are not able to get the required effect in a natural sunrise, then try going in for using software such as Photoshop CS4 or Photoshop Elements 7. You will be able to tweak your images to get the exact effect you want.

Tip 3 (Sometimes failure is best): It is pretty hard to expect that you will get the exact result every time. What you need to do is to have a feel for the settings (also, the photo captures the camera settings), and review the settings against the photo that you got. This sort of comparison and review helps you get the feel for which settings work to get you the best results.

Tip 4 (Atmospheric pollution): Sounds bad, but sometimes when you have an extra element of pollution in the atmosphere and it is not gone by sunrise, the photos you get have some additional colors in them, or rather, more shades of colors in the same photo. Not necessary to happen every time, and your photo may not have the clarity with distance, but the colors may be better (or atleast different).

Tip 5 (Keep the sun away from the center): Once I was at a beautiful vantage point on a cliff with valleys in the distance. A lot of photos had no detail beacuse the camera was focused on the sun, and settings for exposure were geared on the sun, sometimes involuntarily. Try and take some photos where the sun is peripheral in the photo.

5 Photo tips (centered around the morning and daybreak)

Tip 1 (Use weather reports): There is nothing more frustrating than getting up early in the morning for some good sunrise photos, and then getting thwarted by clouds or bad weather. Even while developing patience is a good thing, you should read up about local weather, to make sure that you know what the weather is going to be like.

Tip 2 (Getting a good sunrise photo): Related to the above point, clouds are not bad altogether. If you don't have totally overcast conditions, with some cloud cover, then you can get some great photos. The clouds, tinged with color from the rising sun, as well as the sun playing hide-and-seek among clouds can give some great photos.

Tip 3 (Look for morning shadows): The shadows tend to be much longer at sunrise and sunset, and there are some pretty amazing looking photos you can get if you try and get the play of light and shadows in your photos.

Tip 4 (Look for a body of water): If you are near a lake, river, or other water body such as sea / ocean, the photos you get of the rising sun (or setting sun) over the water looks superb. Even if you can see a huge number of photos of the similar subject, they are still great photos to take to improve your collection.

Tip 5 (Taking light readings): If you are sufficiently professional enough to take light readings when you shoot, don't do so directly for a location with the rays of the rising sun. Take light readings of nearby areas (such as water that is starting to get lit by the sun, or of the sky, or buildings where the sun is not directly lighting up the outside wall). And then, take a number of photos to check which reading gives you the best photo.

5 Photo tips (centered around the morning and daybreak)

Tip 1 (Dream like quality of structures): Try this out. For a few days, go before daybreak near some structures that you like and admire, and then take shots before sunrise. What you will find is that many of these structures look very beautiful in the morning, since the soft light makes these structures seem more beautiful; if you are into poetry, you could feel that they feel floating, light, in the morning sunrise.

Tip 2 (Morning time and birds): If you are an early riser, you would tend to see that birds tend to be most active either in the time just before sunrise, or around sunset. You can get some great bird movement shots (including of larger groups, and those species whom you normally do not get to see) if you do this shooting early.

Tip 3 (Make an HDR): In the morning time, you get rapid changes in light levels within a short period of time. This is ideal if you want to make some great HDR shots in the least possible time period; as long as you shoot often, and adjust your camera for the changed light conditions.

Tip 4 (Sun and moon): You must have seen those shots, whereby the sun and moon can be seen in the same photo, without the moon or the sun being much brighter than each other. This is only possible soon after the sunrise, since the brilliance of the sun rapidly increases, and the moon will soon get lost in this extra light.

Tip 5 (Low levels of pollution in the morning): Morning time is when the pollution levels in the atmosphere and water bodies seem to be minimal, since the whole night with its slightly colder setting helps to bring down the levels of pollution. Combine this with much harsher light in the morning, and you can get great levels of detail in your photos, something that will not be apparent later in the day.

5 Photo tips (centered around the morning and daybreak)

Tip 1 (Camera can see what we can't): It is believed that if we can't see anything, then it is difficult to capture that on camera. However, people with experience in the photography business know that using the shutter speed, ISO and aperture options in the camera can be of great help in capturing images even at low light. So, if you are up before daybreak, and there is a faint light, do not worry that you cannot get some great images. Bump up the ISO, increase the aperture opening, decrease shutter speed (along with using a tripod), and you will be surprised at the clarity of images you get.

Tip 2 (Be attentive just around sunrise): Nature shows a wide variety of colors (including switching from one sky color to another) just before sunrise. Be attentive and ready, try again and again, and you will get some pretty swatches of colors lighting up your photos.

Tip 3 (Softness of light at dawn): When you admire panoramas, look closely. Many of them are shot such that the light looks a bit soft, and the structures or scenery do not appear washed out. This effect can be achieved by shooting panoramas near dawn. One advantage of this is that you are less likely to have to remove people from your photos.

Tip 4 (Shooting long exposures at dawn): As mentioned above, the color can change rapidly near sunrise. Using a tripod, try capturing this movement of colors through taking long exposure photos. You should get some great colored photos. It makes it even more remarkable if there is some structure that is getting highlighted in the different colors. A bridge over a water body would look incredible.

Tip 5 (Shooting structures in silhouette): As the sun starts to rise, use a building to cover the sun in such a way that you get a silhouette. You need to do this when the sun has not risen too much, and the sun rays are still soft. Experiment with different exposures while doing this, and then start to see that some of the photos will look real great. The ideal shot would be when the light is not very bright, and you get some detail of the front of the building, with light peeking from the corners of the building.

5 Photo tips (centered around the morning and daybreak)

Tip 1 (Daybreak and pre-sunrise photos): Even though for most of us, getting up early in the morning before sunrise can be painful, you can get some pretty good shots of sunrise. During daybreak / sunrise, the colors change pretty quickly, and you can get some very interesting colors.

Tip 2 (Daybreak photos, RAW, and White Balance): When you consider the time of daybreak (the time when you can start to see light, but not yet start seeing the sun on the horizon), try and capture multiple photos on RAW. With this, you can experiment with varying the White Balance to get some pretty interesting shots (many cameras also allow you to set the white balance, so you can experiment with those as well)

Tip 3 (Tripod for morning photos): When taking morning photos, if you want to get sufficient exposure, a tripod is almost necessary. Carry a tripod along; anyhow, if you are into photography as a hobby, you should get adjusted to the idea of carrying a tripod.

Tip 4 (Serene atmosphere at dawn): The climate and the environment at dawn is probably the time when you feel best about nature. The slight light, the cleanliness that seemingly surrounds everything, few people around, the peace, the good weather, all these will put you in a much better frame of mind, one with nature, and should translate into some great photos.

Tip 5 (Shooting in hilly areas at dawn): If you are in a hilly area, you must get up early to capture the situation at dawn. If you are positioned right, and you have got your timing right, the sight of the sunlight starting to come through far off mountains (through the gaps between the mountains / hills) can be an incredible sight.