San Jose sits in a broad valley, which means long, clean sightlines to the horizon — golden hour arrives on schedule and lingers, with agricultural haze adding a soft amber filter in summer and fall. The times below are computed live for San Jose'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: Communications Hill's staircase views. 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 San Jose is the hour before sunset — and sunset here runs from 4:49 PM in December to 8:32 PM in June. The table below gives the exact window for every month, in San Jose's own time zone.
Use the live times above for today's exact window. As a rule, evening golden hour in San Jose starts about 38 minutes before sunset and ends at sunset. In June that is 7:51 PM – 8:29 PM; in December it is 4:10 PM – 4:51 PM.
Sunset in San Jose is earliest at 4:49 PM on December 1 and latest at 8:32 PM on June 24, a swing of about 4 hours across the year.
Golden hour lasts about 38 minutes in midsummer and 41 minutes in midwinter. The longest evening golden hour falls in December at about 41 minutes; the shortest is in September at about 34 minutes.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:20 AM | 5:13 PM | 4:34 PM – 5:13 PM | 39 min | 9h 53m |
| February | 6:56 AM | 5:47 PM | 5:11 PM – 5:47 PM | 36 min | 10h 51m |
| March | 7:18 AM | 7:15 PM | 6:40 PM – 7:15 PM | 35 min | 11h 57m |
| April | 6:32 AM | 7:42 PM | 7:07 PM – 7:42 PM | 35 min | 13h 10m |
| May | 5:58 AM | 8:09 PM | 7:32 PM – 8:09 PM | 37 min | 14h 11m |
| June | 5:46 AM | 8:29 PM | 7:51 PM – 8:29 PM | 38 min | 14h 44m |
| July | 5:59 AM | 8:27 PM | 7:49 PM – 8:27 PM | 38 min | 14h 29m |
| August | 6:24 AM | 7:59 PM | 7:23 PM – 7:59 PM | 36 min | 13h 35m |
| September | 6:49 AM | 7:14 PM | 6:40 PM – 7:14 PM | 34 min | 12h 25m |
| October | 7:15 AM | 6:30 PM | 5:54 PM – 6:30 PM | 36 min | 11h 15m |
| November | 6:47 AM | 4:56 PM | 4:18 PM – 4:56 PM | 38 min | 10h 10m |
| December | 7:14 AM | 4:51 PM | 4:10 PM – 4:51 PM | 41 min | 9h 36m |
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.
