Golden Hour and Blue Hour natural light photography techniques and light ratio balance

1. Optical physics of Golden Hour: low-angle incident and Rayleigh scattering

Golden hour occurs approximately 45 minutes after sunrise and 45 minutes before sunset:

1. Atmospheric light path lengthening and blue light scattering: At this time, the sun's altitude angle is extremely low (usually less than 15 degrees), and the physical thickness of sunlight penetrating the earth's atmosphere is more than 10 times that at noon; the blue-violet light with shorter wavelengths is violently scattered by air molecules during the long journey, and only the red, orange, and yellow light with extremely long wavelengths can penetrate directly to the ground;
2. Styling Features: The color temperature of the light drops sharply to 3000K~3500K, casting extremely long and soft shadows, and the light ratio is extremely gentle; the light hits the side of the subject at an almost horizontal angle, giving both portraits and buildings a sacred and incredible warm golden glow.

2. The time and space magic of Blue Hour: the physical balance of artificial light and natural light

The Blues Moment occurs in the short 20 to 30 minutes between when the sun just dips below the horizon and when the sky is completely dark:

• Extreme cold drift in sky color temperature: Upper atmospheric ozone strongly absorbs red light (Chapman absorption band), and the sky presents deep, pure, and highly textured royal sapphire blue and indigo tones (the color temperature soars to 7000K~10000K);
• The miraculous intersection of warm and cold balance: At this time, city street lights, traffic headlights, and warm light (2700K warm yellow) in store windows are all lighting up; The natural cold blue ambient diffuse light of the sky and the city's indoor artificial warm golden lights have reached a 1:1 absolute balance in light intensity that is rare in a century! The boundary between the building outline and the sky is clear and distinct, and there will be no vulgar contrast like when shooting night scenes, the sky is completely black and the ground lights are pale and overexposed.

3. Actual combat of camera parameters and white balance control at two golden moments

Never leave white balance to the camera's AWB:

• Shoot the golden moment: If the automatic white balance is turned on, the camera will be smart enough to think that the picture is yellowish, and will madly add cold colors to neutralize it, turning the warm golden sunset in front of you into a pale white! Be sure to manually fix the white balance to [Daylight 5500K] or [Cloudy 6500K] to completely lock the rich sunset light on the sensor;
• Photographing city night scenes at blues moment: Set the tripod firmly and fix the ISO to 100; shrink the aperture to f/8 ~ f/11 to create bright stars; manually set the white balance to 3500K ~ 4000K. The royal blue of the sky will be rendered as deep and quiet as sapphire, creating a beautiful contrast between the warmth and coldness of the golden warm lights on the ground.

4. Clock management where light counts against every second: sun trajectory and camera position planning

The window period of golden light and shadow is extremely short:

• Use astronomical planning software such as "PhotoPills" or "Planit" in advance to accurately calculate the precise azimuth and elevation angle of the sun setting on the horizon;
• Arrive at the plane 45 minutes in advance to set up your tripod and compose your shot, because the most brilliant light often bursts out 10 minutes before the sun touches the horizon, and then quickly enters the blues moment;
• Maintain a continuous shooting rhythm and shoot a group every 3 minutes to record the epic color gradient of the sky from orange-red to purple-red to deep sapphire blue.