Outdoor Photography How To

Capturing photos of landscapes at sunrise is not only great fun it can produce stunning images. But there’s more to shooting the sunrise than just getting up early.

In the below video from B&H Photo, photographer Maria Perez goes on location in the mountains of Cotopaxi, Ecuador to share five tips to help you shoot epic photos of sunrises.

#1 Planning

“Before you even grab your gear, plan your shot ahead of time,” Perez says. “I’m photographing a mountain, so I’m using apps like Photo Pills to see where the suns going to be coming up and if it’s going to be hitting it to give it a nice glow.”

#2 Gear

“Now that you know your shot, figure out what lenses you’re going to bring. Sunrise is a very short amount of time so having your gear packed and ready is going to eliminate some of that stress during that peak time.”

#3 Raw

“You’ve heard it once and you’re going to hear it again, shoot in Raw. Sunrise is a scene that requires a higher dynamic range so shooting in Raw is going to give you more versatility in post-production because you get the most dynamic range from your camera’s sensor.”

#4 Tripod

“If you’re shooting a landscape, like me, sure the subject isn’t moving but to ensure the sharpest image possible, a tripod is going to help with that. Or maybe you’re going for a long exposure, and you don’t want that image to be blurry.”

#5 Timelapse

“Try a timelapse. Most modern cameras today have a timelapse feature like interval shooting. And if your camera doesn’t have that, you can always pick up an intervalometer.”