Honolulu faces the Pacific, which makes evening golden hour the headline act: the sun drops all the way into open water, so the warm light holds right up until sunset and the blue hour afterward glows over the ocean. The times below are computed live for Honolulu's exact coordinates and update automatically for any date you pick.
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 golden hour spot: the Diamond Head lookout over Waikiki. Arrive 30 minutes before the window opens to set up, and keep shooting into blue hour — it's shorter than you think.
In Honolulu, sunset ranges from 5:48 PM in November to 7:17 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Honolulu's coordinates (21.3069, -157.8583) and shown in Pacific/Honolulu.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:11 AM | 6:10 PM | 5:38 PM – 6:10 PM | 32 min | 10h 59m |
| February | 7:01 AM | 6:29 PM | 5:59 PM – 6:29 PM | 30 min | 11h 28m |
| March | 6:39 AM | 6:41 PM | 6:11 PM – 6:41 PM | 30 min | 12h 01m |
| April | 6:12 AM | 6:50 PM | 6:21 PM – 6:50 PM | 29 min | 12h 39m |
| May | 5:53 AM | 7:02 PM | 6:31 PM – 7:02 PM | 31 min | 13h 10m |
| June | 5:49 AM | 7:14 PM | 6:42 PM – 7:14 PM | 32 min | 13h 26m |
| July | 5:58 AM | 7:16 PM | 6:44 PM – 7:16 PM | 32 min | 13h 18m |
| August | 6:10 AM | 7:01 PM | 6:31 PM – 7:01 PM | 30 min | 12h 51m |
| September | 6:18 AM | 6:34 PM | 6:04 PM – 6:34 PM | 30 min | 12h 16m |
| October | 6:27 AM | 6:06 PM | 5:36 PM – 6:06 PM | 30 min | 11h 40m |
| November | 6:42 AM | 5:49 PM | 5:18 PM – 5:49 PM | 31 min | 11h 07m |
| December | 7:01 AM | 5:52 PM | 5:19 PM – 5:52 PM | 33 min | 10h 51m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Honolulu. It is longest in December at about 33 minutes and shortest in April at about 29 minutes — a difference of 4 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Honolulu gets 2h 35m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 5:52 PM in December to 7:14 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 7:39 PM, and in December until about 6:16 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.
