Santa Monica's golden hour is short, specific, and worth planning around. The times below are computed live for Santa Monica's exact coordinates (34.0195, -118.4914) and update automatically for any date you pick — sunset, sunrise, golden hour and blue hour, all in local time. With a west-facing coastline nearby, evenings are the show — the sun drops toward the Pacific and the last hour of light runs warm and long.
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: For skylines and wide shots, the 15 minutes after sunset usually beats the sunset itself: the sky holds color while buildings and streetlights come up.
In Santa Monica, sunset ranges from 4:44 PM in November to 8:09 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Santa Monica's coordinates (34.0195, -118.4914) and shown in America/Los_Angeles.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 6:59 AM | 5:08 PM | 4:30 PM – 5:08 PM | 38 min | 10h 09m |
| February | 6:38 AM | 5:38 PM | 5:03 PM – 5:38 PM | 35 min | 11h 00m |
| March | 7:04 AM | 7:01 PM | 6:28 PM – 7:01 PM | 33 min | 11h 58m |
| April | 6:22 AM | 7:25 PM | 6:52 PM – 7:25 PM | 33 min | 13h 03m |
| May | 5:52 AM | 7:48 PM | 7:13 PM – 7:48 PM | 35 min | 13h 56m |
| June | 5:42 AM | 8:06 PM | 7:30 PM – 8:06 PM | 36 min | 14h 25m |
| July | 5:53 AM | 8:05 PM | 7:29 PM – 8:05 PM | 36 min | 14h 12m |
| August | 6:15 AM | 7:40 PM | 7:06 PM – 7:40 PM | 34 min | 13h 25m |
| September | 6:37 AM | 7:00 PM | 6:27 PM – 7:00 PM | 33 min | 12h 23m |
| October | 6:59 AM | 6:19 PM | 5:45 PM – 6:19 PM | 34 min | 11h 20m |
| November | 6:26 AM | 4:50 PM | 4:13 PM – 4:50 PM | 37 min | 10h 24m |
| December | 6:52 AM | 4:46 PM | 4:07 PM – 4:46 PM | 39 min | 9h 54m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Santa Monica. It is longest in December at about 39 minutes and shortest in March at about 33 minutes — a difference of 6 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Santa Monica gets 4h 31m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 4:46 PM in December to 8:06 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 8:36 PM, and in December until about 5:14 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.
