Raleigh's skyline is the subject here: golden hour rakes warm light across the towers, then blue hour flips the scene as the buildings light up. The 20 minutes after sunset are the money window. The times below are computed live for Raleigh'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: Dorothea Dix Park's downtown vista. Arrive 30 minutes before the window opens to set up, and keep shooting into blue hour — it's shorter than you think.
Golden hour in Raleigh is the hour before sunset — and sunset here runs from 5:00 PM in December to 8:34 PM in June. The table below gives the exact window for every month, in Raleigh's own time zone.
Use the live times above for today's exact window. As a rule, evening golden hour in Raleigh starts about 38 minutes before sunset and ends at sunset. In June that is 7:54 PM – 8:32 PM; in December it is 4:22 PM – 5:02 PM.
Sunset in Raleigh is earliest at 5:00 PM on December 1 and latest at 8:34 PM on June 21, a swing of about 4 hours across the year.
Golden hour lasts about 38 minutes in midsummer and 40 minutes in midwinter. The longest evening golden hour falls in December at about 40 minutes; the shortest is in March at about 34 minutes.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:23 AM | 5:24 PM | 4:46 PM – 5:24 PM | 38 min | 10h 01m |
| February | 7:01 AM | 5:56 PM | 5:21 PM – 5:56 PM | 35 min | 10h 55m |
| March | 7:25 AM | 7:22 PM | 6:48 PM – 7:22 PM | 34 min | 11h 57m |
| April | 6:41 AM | 7:48 PM | 7:13 PM – 7:48 PM | 35 min | 13h 06m |
| May | 6:09 AM | 8:13 PM | 7:36 PM – 8:13 PM | 37 min | 14h 04m |
| June | 5:57 AM | 8:32 PM | 7:54 PM – 8:32 PM | 38 min | 14h 34m |
| July | 6:10 AM | 8:30 PM | 7:53 PM – 8:30 PM | 37 min | 14h 21m |
| August | 6:33 AM | 8:04 PM | 7:29 PM – 8:04 PM | 35 min | 13h 31m |
| September | 6:57 AM | 7:21 PM | 6:47 PM – 7:21 PM | 34 min | 12h 24m |
| October | 7:21 AM | 6:38 PM | 6:04 PM – 6:38 PM | 34 min | 11h 18m |
| November | 6:50 AM | 5:07 PM | 4:30 PM – 5:07 PM | 37 min | 10h 17m |
| December | 7:17 AM | 5:02 PM | 4:22 PM – 5:02 PM | 40 min | 9h 45m |
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.
