
I think you got the idea, right?Īnd what about the location? The answer is the latitude: at the Equator, the days will have 12 hours of light and 12 of darkness. On 22th of December (winter solstice) you’ll get the shortest day in the northern hemisphere and the longest day in the southern one on 20th of June (summer solstice) you’ll get the longest day in the northern hemisphere and the shortest in the southern one. In the easiest possible words, because of the Earth rotation: from March to September the northern hemisphere is oriented towards the sun and so it gets more light, while from September to March the southern hemisphere is the one that is more exposed to the sun and will get more light. Light creates Long Shadows: if the sun is low on the horizon during the golden hours, that can only means one thing: long, big shadows to use in your photos to have more contrasts and to give more importance to your subject(s) hit by the warm sunlight!Īs I was just saying, golden hour times are subject to variations throughout the year why? Do you want the sun in your picture, to have a strong light point? Or do you want some side light coming into your frame to light up your subject(s)? While with the harsh daylight you won’t have many choices, at the golden hours you can play a lot more with the sunlight. Directional Light: during golden hours the sun will be low on the horizon, and that means that you can change a lot in your photos just by deciding in which direction to shoot. While during the day the sunlight tend to be white-ish, at golden hours a warmer light will be all over your subjects, and will create a completely different (and generally better) atmosphere. Warm Light: one more important reason because photographers prefer to be out during the golden hour is the warmness of the light. That means that you won’t find yourself anymore to shoot with the harsh mid-day light and its strong contrasts, but with a soft and delicate light. Soft Light: one of the main reasons why the golden hour is so popular between photographers is because the light become softer at that time. Rationally speaking, what makes the golden hour so photogenic? Some Nikon DSLRs have a built-in HDR mode feature, where multiple exposures of a scene are captured and combined in-camera to form an HDR photograph.Okay, now that we got a small introduction about what is the golden hour, it’s time to understand why is so important in photography. An HDR image comprises of a number of shots taken at different exposure levels, which are then blended together during post-processing. If you are using a DSLR to capture your shots, try experimenting with High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. Take some test shots and always check your histogram to ensure you have no overblown highlights or unnecessary shadows.Pressing the shutter release button can sometimes cause unintentional camera shake, resulting in a blurry shot.

MORNING GOLDEN HOUR TIME MANUAL
Shoot in shutter-priority or manual mode as these allow you to manually select your shutter speed.

MORNING GOLDEN HOUR TIME ISO
Keep your ISO as low as you can to lessen the grain and noise in your image.Mount your camera on a tripod for stability and compose your image with the skyline as the backdrop.You will need to give yourself enough time to set up your gear.

Plan ahead and get to your location early.As blue hour depends on your geographical location, remember to check the time of your local sunrise and sunset.If you are new to blue hour photography, here are some tips to help you get started: In the evening, it occurs at the end of the civil twilight, just after the golden hour and starts roughly 10 to 15 minutes after the sun has set. In the morning, blue hour occurs just before golden hour at the beginning of civil twilight, which is around 30 minutes before the sun rises. During this period of time, red light, which has a longer wavelength than blue light, passes through the atmosphere into space, while the blue light gets scattered and diffused. When the sun reaches six degrees below the horizon, it is no longer directly illuminating the ground, but it is illuminating the upper atmosphere. This is due to Rayleigh scattering, which is the scattering of light by particles smaller than the wavelength of visible light, the same process that makes the sky blue.

It’s the moment when the sky has a predominantly deep blue hue and the light is soft enough to emphasise the most of the dark areas of the scene, without requiring any additional light source.
