Great light in Rochester isn't luck — it's timing. This page calculates today's sunset, sunrise, golden hour and blue hour for Rochester's exact location, live, and works for any date you choose. 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: Don't pack up at sunset — blue hour starts right after, and the 20 minutes of deep-blue sky with city lights on is the most underrated window of the day.
In Rochester, sunset ranges from 4:35 PM in December to 8:54 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Rochester's coordinates (43.1548, -77.6156) and shown in America/New_York.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:39 AM | 5:00 PM | 4:16 PM – 5:00 PM | 44 min | 9h 22m |
| February | 7:08 AM | 5:41 PM | 5:01 PM – 5:41 PM | 40 min | 10h 34m |
| March | 7:22 AM | 7:16 PM | 6:39 PM – 7:16 PM | 37 min | 11h 55m |
| April | 6:28 AM | 7:53 PM | 7:15 PM – 7:53 PM | 38 min | 13h 25m |
| May | 5:46 AM | 8:27 PM | 7:46 PM – 8:27 PM | 41 min | 14h 41m |
| June | 5:30 AM | 8:52 PM | 8:08 PM – 8:52 PM | 44 min | 15h 22m |
| July | 5:44 AM | 8:48 PM | 8:05 PM – 8:48 PM | 43 min | 15h 03m |
| August | 6:16 AM | 8:12 PM | 7:33 PM – 8:12 PM | 39 min | 13h 57m |
| September | 6:50 AM | 7:20 PM | 6:42 PM – 7:20 PM | 38 min | 12h 30m |
| October | 7:24 AM | 6:27 PM | 5:48 PM – 6:27 PM | 39 min | 11h 03m |
| November | 7:03 AM | 4:46 PM | 4:03 PM – 4:46 PM | 43 min | 9h 43m |
| December | 7:35 AM | 4:35 PM | 3:49 PM – 4:35 PM | 46 min | 9h 01m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Rochester. It is longest in December at about 46 minutes and shortest in March at about 37 minutes — a difference of 9 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Rochester gets 6h 21m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 4:35 PM in December to 8:52 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 9:27 PM, and in December until about 5:08 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.
