Golden hour was the opportune time to catch this shot
Golden hour is one of those topics where still photos and video intersect. If you’ve ever spent time on a movie set late in the day, there will be one person fretting about losing the light every moment they’re not recording. That person is the Director of Photography or DP, the person responsible for the overall look of the film. They’re not worried it getting dark, they’re concerned about losing the best light of the day. That fantastic light occurs twice a day, early in the morning and late in the afternoon.
The official definition of golden hour is when the sun is six degrees above the horizon to six degrees below the horizon. The angle in the sky when light from the sun passes through more of the atmosphere before striking the ground. The more atmosphere, the more the blue light in the spectrum is scattered, leaving behind a rich gold and red color with a wonderful warm color that makes everything that it touches look better than real life.
Not only does golden hour light look warmer but the quality of light is slightly different. Shadows are less distinct, the line between colors less defined, contrast increases. The interesting thing about golden hour is the light is a moving target. Constantly changing in both luminosity and color temperature, you can actually see the colors change.
It’s also never long enough. In the shot above, I actually found myself willing the ship captain to go faster before the quality of the light changed.
Some tips for getting the most out of golden hour:
Take a tripod – With the light fading fast those shutter times will creep up on you in a hurry.
Bracket – If your camera has a auto-bracketing feature, turn it on. Golden hour offers some wonderful opportunities for HDR shots and you’ll need the exposure latitude. Shadows will be deep and you’ll lose the sky if you expose for the shadows. Think in layers.
Turn off auto white balance – Turn off your camera’s AWB. As the light temperature changes your camera might start thinking you’re working under incandescent lights and try to color correct, which would spoil whole effect.
Shoot fast – You’ll be amazed how fast that 12 degrees of movement happens. The will be be not right, not right, then perfect, then gone. Just that fast.
Golden hour is the best time of day for photography, your chance to shoot pictures that look so good they seem fake. Take advantage of it.
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