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Perfect golden hour time5/21/2023 If you notice your camera is consistently overexposing a particular scene, for example, tune your exposure compensation down as many stops as needed until you achieve the look you want. You can take a few test shots to check your settings and then shoot in aperture priority or shutter priority modes while automatically using exposure compensation to “correct” the image. Or speed might be essential for getting a good shot, so you’ll need another solution. However, guessing-and-checking isn’t practical or possible in some situations, like in street photography. Here, you may want to use the “spot meter” setting on your camera to meter specifically for the highlights, or simply guess-and-check again, adjusting the exposure as necessary. The default meter reading will likely blow out the highlights, which could cause you to lose detail where it’s most important. Your light meter can also be fooled if you have both direct sunlight and dark shadows on your subject. The beauty of digital photography is that you can keep guessing-and-checking until you see the result you want. Then frame up your shot, shoot it, and review the image on the LCD screen - if your subject still isn’t completely black, use a faster shutter speed or stop down the aperture (or use negative exposure compensation). There are no universal settings for taking pictures during golden hour. Like any other time of day, your camera’s light meter should provide a good starting point, but you might have to trick it in order to achieve certain results.įor a silhouette, for example, a good place to start is by pointing your camera at the sky and locking in your exposure settings. What camera settings are best for golden hour? You can even continue to shoot silhouettes into the blue hour after sunset, as in the second examples above. With direct sunlight or a bright sky on one side of your subject and very little light on the other side, silhouettes can almost happen by accident during golden hour. If you do want to create a silhouette, golden hour is the perfect time for it. This type of flare can spice up a landscape, and is another example of presenting something in a way that people don’t normally see it. This will cause any lights in the frame - namely, the sun - to turn into multi-pointed bursts. To turn the flare into a sun burst, stop your lens down to near its smallest aperture (this will probably be around f/16). You can try to avoid this by reframing the shot, or you can embrace it or even enhance it. If it’s anywhere in the frame, you’re bound to get a pretty obtrusive lens flare. The sun being so low in the sky poses some challenges. Golden hour also opens up some opportunities to capitalize on other photographic techniques and effects, detailed below. By going out at less popular times, not only do you avoid the worst of the crowds, but you also get a photographic perspective that most people miss. Most people are not waking up at the crack of dawn to go outside, nor staying out through sunset.Įven at our most visually striking and over-photographed destinations, like Yellowstone National Park seen above, the peak visitor times are in the middle of the day. This is what makes it so critical for landscape photography.īut beyond these technical reasons, golden hour photographs look more interesting because they show us something in a way we don’t typically see it. Low-angle light also casts longer shadows, adding drama and revealing textures that would be lost at other times of day. When the sun is low in the sky, it takes on a warmer, more orange color temperature - hence the golden part of golden hour. Keep in mind, mountains, trees, or buildings may block sunlight well before the official sunset time in your region, so it’s a good idea to plan ahead. You may have up to a couple of hours of excellent light preceding the sunset, and can even continue shooting after the sunset (during a time called “blue hour”) depending on the effect you’re going for. That doesn’t mean you need to be ready to shoot at precisely the exact moment. For example, at the right time of year above the arctic circle, golden hour can actually last 24 hours.įor those of us at less extreme latitudes, the basic rule of thumb is that golden hour will peak twice a day, at sunrise and sunset. There is no definitive beginning or end, and the time changes depending on your latitude and the season. Like rush hour, golden hour isn’t actually just an hour. What is the Rule of Thirds, and how do you use it?.What is a histogram, and how do you use it?.Exposure, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.Photography 101: What is a histogram, and how do you use it? How to use photography’s rule of thirds - and when to break it
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