Photographers plan around two windows: the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Here are both for Germantown — computed live for its exact coordinates, accurate for any date you pick. On this side of the country, sunrise is the underrated window — the sun comes up over the Atlantic side and morning golden hour is quieter than the evening one.
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 Germantown, sunset ranges from 4:46 PM in November to 8:39 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Germantown's coordinates (39.1732, -77.2716) and shown in America/New_York.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:26 AM | 5:10 PM | 4:29 PM – 5:10 PM | 41 min | 9h 44m |
| February | 7:00 AM | 5:46 PM | 5:09 PM – 5:46 PM | 37 min | 10h 46m |
| March | 7:20 AM | 7:16 PM | 6:40 PM – 7:16 PM | 36 min | 11h 56m |
| April | 6:32 AM | 7:46 PM | 7:10 PM – 7:46 PM | 36 min | 13h 14m |
| May | 5:55 AM | 8:15 PM | 7:37 PM – 8:15 PM | 38 min | 14h 20m |
| June | 5:42 AM | 8:37 PM | 7:56 PM – 8:37 PM | 41 min | 14h 55m |
| July | 5:55 AM | 8:34 PM | 7:55 PM – 8:34 PM | 39 min | 14h 39m |
| August | 6:22 AM | 8:04 PM | 7:27 PM – 8:04 PM | 37 min | 13h 42m |
| September | 6:50 AM | 7:17 PM | 6:42 PM – 7:17 PM | 35 min | 12h 27m |
| October | 7:18 AM | 6:30 PM | 5:53 PM – 6:30 PM | 37 min | 11h 11m |
| November | 6:52 AM | 4:54 PM | 4:15 PM – 4:54 PM | 39 min | 10h 02m |
| December | 7:21 AM | 4:47 PM | 4:05 PM – 4:47 PM | 42 min | 9h 26m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Germantown. It is longest in December at about 42 minutes and shortest in September at about 35 minutes — a difference of 7 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Germantown gets 5h 29m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 4:47 PM in December to 8:37 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 9:09 PM, and in December until about 5:17 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.
