Find the exact times of golden hour with this helpful tool

Golden or magic hour is the favorite time of day of most photographers who love using natural light. The only trouble with it is that it lasts, well, an hour, so you have to be at your location at a very specific time. Guys at Inkifi have created The Golden Hour Index, a tool that lets you determine the exact moment when the magic hour starts and ends. It works wherever in the world you are and lets you get the most of this time of day.

You have two chances during the day to catch the golden hour: around sunrise and around sunset. They don’t start and end at the same time every day, so it’s good to have a little helper to tell you when you should be on location. This is what The Golden Hour Index does.

It’s pretty straightforward to use: enter your date and location, and the tool will tell you the times of the morning and the evening golden hours. Simple as that.

Inkifi also shares three tips to further help you shoot during the golden hour:

1. Be prepared – golden hour is a short window of time, so you need to be prepared to get the shot in that time. Scout locations in advance and plan your trip.
2. Be early – arriving early means that you can get to your location first and beat anyone with the same idea as you to the spot with the best backdrop.
3. Check the weather –before you get up at 4 am and head to your shoot location, check the weather. You don’t want to get there only to see it’s overcast.

Of course, the idea of a golden hour calculator isn’t entirely new. I personally use PhotoPills for that, and I believe it exists in other apps as well. But we all have our preferences, so maybe The Golden Hour Index will work best for you. You can check out the tool here and let us know what you think.