Great light in Bakersfield isn't luck — it's timing. This page calculates today's sunset, sunrise, golden hour and blue hour for Bakersfield's exact location, live, and works for any date you choose. With a west-facing coastline nearby, evenings are the show — the sun drops toward the Pacific and the last hour of light runs warm and long.
The month-by-month table below is in this city's own local time. The live times above follow your device's timezone. Mountains, ridgelines and buildings can shorten the usable window — scout your horizon.
Local tip: Shoot with the sun behind your subject during golden hour and expose for the face — the rim light does the rest.
In Bakersfield, sunset ranges from 4:43 PM in November to 8:15 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Bakersfield's coordinates (35.3733, -119.0187) and shown in America/Los_Angeles.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:04 AM | 5:07 PM | 4:29 PM – 5:07 PM | 38 min | 10h 03m |
| February | 6:42 AM | 5:38 PM | 5:03 PM – 5:38 PM | 35 min | 10h 56m |
| March | 7:06 AM | 7:03 PM | 6:30 PM – 7:03 PM | 33 min | 11h 57m |
| April | 6:23 AM | 7:29 PM | 6:55 PM – 7:29 PM | 34 min | 13h 06m |
| May | 5:51 AM | 7:53 PM | 7:17 PM – 7:53 PM | 36 min | 14h 02m |
| June | 5:40 AM | 8:12 PM | 7:35 PM – 8:12 PM | 37 min | 14h 32m |
| July | 5:52 AM | 8:11 PM | 7:34 PM – 8:11 PM | 37 min | 14h 19m |
| August | 6:15 AM | 7:44 PM | 7:10 PM – 7:44 PM | 34 min | 13h 29m |
| September | 6:38 AM | 7:02 PM | 6:29 PM – 7:02 PM | 33 min | 12h 24m |
| October | 7:02 AM | 6:20 PM | 5:46 PM – 6:20 PM | 34 min | 11h 18m |
| November | 6:31 AM | 4:49 PM | 4:12 PM – 4:49 PM | 37 min | 10h 18m |
| December | 6:57 AM | 4:44 PM | 4:05 PM – 4:44 PM | 39 min | 9h 47m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Bakersfield. It is longest in December at about 39 minutes and shortest in March at about 33 minutes — a difference of 6 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Bakersfield gets 4h 45m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 4:44 PM in December to 8:12 PM in June, so an evening shoot that works in summer will be shooting in the dark at the same clock time in winter.
Blue hour follows sunset and is worth planning for separately: in June it runs until about 8:42 PM, and in December until about 5:13 PM.
Golden hour is the stretch just after sunrise and just before sunset, when the low sun turns hard daylight into soft, warm, directional light — the most flattering natural light for portraits, real estate, product and landscape photography. Blue hour follows sunset (and precedes sunrise): a short window of deep, even blue that's ideal for twilight real estate shots and skylines. Both windows change with latitude and season, which is why this page computes them live instead of guessing.
Kanyon Studio is a San Diego photography and video studio — golden hour is our home field. Brand shoots, products, real estate and portraits, planned around exactly this light.
