Golden Hour Photography Tips: Get The Most Of The Magical Light

It probably occurred to you that the golden hour, or magic hour, is some kind of sacred moment for every photographer. So much so that they all advise choosing this particular moment to get out and shoot. I am not going to contradict them! That’s why I decided to create this article to give you my best golden hour photography tips, so you can make the most of it.

The golden hour acts as a natural enhancer for any photograph. It is very precious for us travel photographers, in our quest to inspire wanderlust and share the beauty of the regions we travel across.

If you are wondering what’s so great about the golden hour (hint: it goes beyond the fact that sunset is pretty) and looking for advice to get the most of this magical light, this article is for you!

What Is The Golden Hour?

Just to know what we are talking about, let’s first define what we call the golden hour.

The golden hour actually happens twice a day: after sunrise, and before sunset. How much time it lasts varies according to your geographical location and the season. It often lasts between 20 mins and 45 mins. Most of the time closer to 20 mins though.

“Golden hour” is a bit of a generic term for these two moments where the sun is low on the horizon and its light gets wonderfully golden.

There is a very handy website called golden-hour.com where you can easily get the precise timing of the golden hour, according to where you are in the world.

You might be wondering why the light gets warmer and warmer (more and more orange) as the sun gets closer to the horizon line.

Well, the light coming from the sun is white. This means that it contains all the colors in a rainbow, corresponding to different wavelengths.

As the sun gets closer to the horizon, its light travels along the surface of the Earth and has to cross a thicker part of our atmosphere. On top of that, the air closer to the ground is naturally dustier.

This has the effect of filtering out the wavelengths in the blue range, revealing the yellow-to-red part of the spectrum.

Just to illustrate this filtering effect, take a look at this (beautiful) portrait of me on the left, shot during the golden hour.

I am standing in front of a smoking volcano crater, and you can see how the light appears much more orange after going through the smoke than it is outside the smoke on the left of the image. This is because the smoke is filtering the light even further.

Why The Golden Hour Light Is Great For Photographers

When you think about it, what makes or breaks a photo is often the quality of the light.

Let’s start with the most obvious: golden hour light is warm. There is this thing called color temperature (from blue to red – cold to warm) and as we just saw, during the golden hour it is on the warmer side. The warm glow is inevitably pleasant to the eye and often creates this sought-after magical atmosphere in the picture. The effect is also great on the human skin, enabling us to shoot remarkable portraits.

The light during the golden hour is soft. It illuminates the scene in a gentle way. Many beginners think they need bright full sun to properly illuminate a scene. But most of the time, such a light is actually too harsh and leads to overexposed pictures, dull colors, and flat relief. During the golden hour, the amount of light is smaller, filtered, and diffused through the atmosphere.

As a result, it is easier for us to capture a wide dynamic range, and the contrasts are less extreme than in bright sunlight. You can check this article if you are not sure of what I am talking about.

The light is also directional, which means it comes from the side. This is great because it leads to long, pretty shadows that add a lot of depth to our subject. It also does wonder to make any texture really pop in your picture.

How To Get The Most of The Golden Hour – Photography Tips

Planning The Shot

Unfortunately, the golden hour, which rarely lasts an hour, is a very short time. It means that if you arrive just on time and totally unprepared, all you’ll do is rush a few shots before the magic moment is gone.

If you seriously want to get good pictures, it is important to plan your shots, and know where you will be going, and what pictures you will be getting. Arrive early and prepared.

It might be a good move to choose the morning golden hour, as sunset times are often crowded with photographers (depending on where you are, of course), whereas not everyone is ready to get up early to catch the sunrise. Moreover, in the early morning, it is sometimes to add interesting elements to your images, such as a morning mist.

Use a Tripod

As we have seen earlier, the amount of light during the golden hour is smaller. It is a good recipe for blurred pictures and it is a good idea to bring a tripod with you.

Indeed, in a darker environment, for a given aperture, the shutter speed is slower. You can, of course, choose a wider aperture and keep a fast shutter speed but this can only get you so far and it’s not always the best solution. Let’s take a closer look at camera settings to understand why.

Camera Settings For The Golden Hour

The following settings are good to go if you are using a tripod and remote control (very cool and very cheap!). If you don’t have a remote, you can also set the timer to 2 seconds before the picture is shot. This avoids blurry images caused by the vibrations when you press the shutter release button.

ISO Settings: It can be tempting to just set your ISO higher to keep a reasonably fast shutter speed and avoid blurred pictures. This is not a great solution, because higher ISO also means lower image quality and an image full of noise or grain. A general rule is to keep your ISO as low as possible.

If you can do with ISO 100 or 200 it’s great, ISO 400, if you have to, is also okay. I would personally try not to go over ISO 800 if you want a great image quality (but depending on the circumstances, you might have no choice).

Aperture: Most of the time, you can shoot in Aperture Priority Mode and let the camera decide the shutter speed. Ideally, you want to keep your aperture around f/8 or f/11, as it is the area where the image quality is the best on most lenses. If it’s getting really dark and you need to open more, f/5.6 is a good compromise. Usually, opening more than that will lead to lower image quality (less sharp images) – it all depends on what lens you are using of course.

Shoot in RAW: This is something you really need to get used to if you want to improve your photography. I never shoot only JPG anymore (unless I know it will just be a bunch of unimportant pictures). Shooting in RAW allows best image post-processing, and possible recovery of any underexposed or overexposed area in your image (among many, many other things). You can check this article about HDR processing for more info.

Shutter speed: So far, we have been using a tripod and let the camera decide the shutter speed. If a low shutter speed is a problem (i.e. if you don’t have a tripod, or if you don’t want moving elements to be blurred in your pictures), then you will need to shoot in Manual Mode of Shutter Speed Priority Mode.

The minimum shutter speed needed to freeze motion is 1/100th second and can go up to 1/1000th second for fast-moving objects. However, 1/1000th second is really fast, and in a darker environment, it will most likely lead to severely underexposed images.

In manual mode, you can set your shutter speed to 1/100th second and play with aperture and ISO settings to get the image you want. If 1/100th second gets you very dark images, you have no other choice than to open more and increase ISO.

About Motion Blur: We have just seen how to freeze motion but usually, motion blur creates really cool and creative elements that make an image stand out. Since they rely on a slower shutter speed, they can be more tricky to obtain in bright light (because your image gets overexposed, you need to use filters, etc.). The lower light during the golden hour is a great opportunity to use motion blur in your pictures, by using longer shutter speeds without overexposing your pictures.

Image Quality and Formats – Preserving the Warmth and Detail

For photographers who have gone the extra mile to capture the ephemeral beauty of the golden hour, preserving image quality in post-processing is as crucial as the shoot itself. The format in which you save your images can have a significant impact on the outcome. While the convenience of JPEG (JPG) is often preferred, it is a lossy format, meaning that some data and quality are sacrificed for smaller file sizes.

On the other hand, PNG files retain more detail and offer higher quality with lossless compression. This is particularly important when capturing the subtle gradations and rich hues of golden hour shots. An online JPG to PNG conversion might be beneficial for images where every pixel counts or when you’re looking to post-process without compromising on the nuances captured.

Plus, with recent advancements in the PNG format, even transparency is supported. This makes it an ideal option for collages or when adding branding elements to your photos.

Professionals often opt for formats like TIFF or PSD for editing purposes, as these support layers and offer lossless compression, ensuring the highest fidelity to the original shot. Remember, each format serves its purpose, and understanding where and when to use each can make a profound difference in showcasing your golden hour photography effectively.

Wrapping Up

I hope this article will help you shoot wonderful, great-quality images during the golden hour. I have talked quite a lot about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. These are the three elements to really understand if you want to get good at photography.

If the last paragraph about camera settings gave you a headache and you don’t understand how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO work together, I suggest you make it a priority to learn about them.