Four Tips for Better Sunrise Photos

Rick Sammon Be on the scene before dawn to capture light like this.

While fireworks make for spectacular pictures, they show up only so many times a year, whereas nature’s fireworks â€" sunrises and sunsets â€" are available daily.

So why don’t more of us take great dawn and dusk photos Several reasons, most of them having to do with a lack of expertise. Rick Sammon, a professional photographer, recently led a class on a visit to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, where tens of thousands of geese gather around the holidays to be photographed by hundreds of photographers.

Mr. Sammon shared some of the techniques he taught his students.

Early Birds. You can’t just showup at sunrise and expect to catch the photo. In fact, Mr. Sammon’s photo illustrating this post was taken an hour before sunrise. “You have to be there at least an hour and a half before,” he said. You may be jockeying for position with other photographers. Even if you get up at 4 a.m., you still need to do advance work. Visit a day ahead if you can, or at least check a weather site and a map to see where the sun will be coming from. “Researching your subject is very, very important.”

Sunspot. Anytime you are shooting into the sun you will have extreme light and shadow. Set your exposure for the brightest element, the sun, Mr. Sammon said. It is much easier to coax detail out of shadowy underexposed areas than to put color back into overexposed areas. To get the exposure right, learn to use your camera’s histogram and its overexposure warning. You can find out about them in the manual. When using a point-and-shoot camera, aim it at the brightest spot, press the shutter button halfw! ay to lock in that setting, then frame the photo the way you want and press the button the rest of the way. That will tell your camera to expose for the bright spot.

Made in the Shade. To enhance shadowy details, Mr. Sammon uses a feature called “shadow highlights” found in Photoshop and Lightroom. “I thought it was a sissy feature,” he said. “It turns out it is superpowerful.” It lets him recover images hidden in shadows and tone down highlights at the same time. He also applies a feature called Detail Extractor from Nik Color Efex Pro. “Usually more detail means noise,” he said, “but magically this doesn’t.”

Bring the Noise. Photos in low light risk showing a lot of “noise,” which shows up as grainy dots.  Those are typically made worse by a high ISO setting, which lets in more light. Mr. Sammon tells people not to worry about the noise. Software products like Nik Dfine, Noise Ninja â€" now in the process of being replaced by another product, Photo Ninja â€" and Topz Denoise can reduce it greatly. Many cameras also have a built-in noise reduction filter that you may have to turn on. “If you are there before sunrise you might have to shoot at ISO 1000 to get some color.” In any case, don’t worry, Mr. Sammon said: “My father used to say, ‘If a picture is so boring you notice the noise, it’s a boring picture.’”

Finally, don’t become so entranced by the sun reaching the horizon that you miss a better shot elsewhere. “Always look behind you, because that light is spectacular,” Mr. Sammon said.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/10/2013, on page B8 of the NewYork edition with the headline: The Early Riser Catches the Dawn in Photos.