Golden hour vs blue hour vs magic hour
Three names for the light around sunset, and no single definition for any of them. Here is what each source means, in sun angles, and what film crews mean by magic hour.
The short answer
Golden hour is the low sun: warm, directional light and long shadows, around sunset and sunrise. Blue hour is the deep-blue sky a little after sunset or before sunrise. Magic hour means both to most photographers, but on a film set it means something narrower: the minutes after the sun has gone below the horizon, when there is no direct sunlight yet the sky is still bright. Only the astronomical events underneath these names have official definitions; the photographic names are conventions.
Official definitions
| Event | Sun’s centre | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Sunrise, sunset | −0.833° | Top of the sun on a flat horizon: 16′ for the sun’s radius plus 34′ of average refraction. |
| Civil twilight | 0° to −6° | Enough light for most outdoor activity without lamps. |
| Nautical twilight | −6° to −12° | The horizon at sea is still visible. |
| Astronomical twilight | −12° to −18° | The sky is not yet fully dark. |
The US Naval Observatory also warns that at high latitudes the sun crosses the horizon at a shallow angle, so small changes in refraction, the observer’s height or the terrain can move sunrise and sunset by many minutes.
Golden hour and blue hour thresholds, source by source
| Source | Golden hour | Blue hour | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| PhotoPills | −4° to +6° | −6° to −4° | Sun’s centre. The Python library astral uses the same definition. |
| The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) | 0° to +6° | Not defined | Golden hour only while there is direct sun, so it does not overlap magic hour. |
| Five apps surveyed by TPE’s author | −4° to +6° (3), 0° to +6° (1), 0° to +10° (1) | −6° to −4° (2), −8° to −4° (1), −10° to −3° (1) | One app redefines “twilight” as −12° to −4°. |
| timeanddate (via Wikipedia) | — | Bluest from −4° to −8° | Wikipedia notes blue hour has no official definition. |
| LunaSolCal | — | −4° to −8° | |
| Stonekick Sun Position | +6° to sunset | — | Equivalent to 0° to +6°. |
| suncalc.js | Only the +6° moment | Not built in | Dawn and dusk at −6°, sunrise at −0.833°. |
| Film “magic hour” | — | — | Closest to sunset until −6° (end of civil twilight); also used loosely for the whole low-sun period. |
Those differences are why two apps can give golden hour times ten minutes apart for the same place: PhotoPills’ golden hour runs 4° past sunset, TPE’s stops at the horizon. Our calculators let you switch between three definitions and label every time with the one in use.
What magic hour means in film
Cinematographers describe it by the light, not by an angle: after sunset, before dark. With the sun gone, the only light source is the sky, so there are no hard shadows and the contrast between sky, faces and scenery drops to a few stops, which a modern camera can hold in one exposure. That makes it closest to the sun between 0.833° and 6° below the horizon, which is civil twilight. On a clear evening the light falls by about seven to eight stops across civil twilight, from roughly 500 lux to roughly 3 lux (American Meteorological Society, Glossary of Meteorology, “twilight”), so exposure has to keep changing while you shoot. Our clear-sky model, which the calculators use, puts it at about one stop every 4 minutes after sunset in New York in late September.
Néstor Almendros, who shot Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), wrote in American Cinematographer (June 1979) that there are only about twenty minutes between sunset and full darkness, which makes “magic hour” an optimistic euphemism. The crew rehearsed through the day and filmed as fast as they could the moment the sun went down. In the documentary Visions of Light he put the usable time at 20 to 25 minutes at most: light in the sky, but no real sun.
Roger Deakins has said on his own forum that a sequence in 1917 was shot at magic hour because he needed the feel of first light balanced against firelight, a balance that does not work in daylight. His advice for blue hour is to storyboard first and split what can be shot at dawn from what can be shot at dusk.
How long each one lasts
Near sunset the sun sinks about 0.25° a minute at the equator and about 0.19° a minute in New York around the equinox. So PhotoPills’ 10° golden hour lasts about 40 minutes at the equator and about 53 minutes in New York, and the film magic hour about 21 and 27 minutes. At 60° north in summer the sun slides along the horizon and golden hour can run past two hours; inside the polar circles some days have none at all.
Calculators
- Golden hour calculator for any place and date, with sun direction.
- Blue hour calculator, with civil and nautical twilight.
- Magic hour calculator, with obstruction and observer height.
Questions
What is the difference between golden hour, blue hour and magic hour?
Golden hour is the low sun around sunset or sunrise, with warm direct light. Blue hour is the part of twilight when the sun is a few degrees below the horizon and the sky turns deep blue. Magic hour is used two ways: loosely for both, and in film for the time between sunset and the end of civil twilight, when there is no direct sun but the sky is still bright.
Is there an official definition of golden hour or blue hour?
No. Only sunrise, sunset and civil, nautical and astronomical twilight have official definitions. Golden and blue hour angles are conventions chosen by app makers, which is why apps disagree.
How long is magic hour?
In the film sense, about 21 minutes at the equator and 25 to 35 minutes at mid-latitudes, longer near the poles and the solstices. Cinematographers who used it heavily report 20 to 25 usable minutes.