The magic hour is the time just after sunrise and just before sunset, when the light has that beautiful, mesmerizing quality that can transform a dull, flat scene into a stunning photograph. Photos taken at dusk are different. They almost have an element of otherworldliness that only appears during that brief moment between day and night. Twilight can be a beautiful setting for any photo, but especially for landscapes. If you master photographing at dusk, your photo collection can be truly spectacular.
Photographing at dusk can be difficult. If you do it right you'll get great photos, but if you do it wrong you'll have to wait another whole day to try again. Twilight is brutal and short. So you have to know what you are doing and work quickly.
Landscape photography at dusk is not something you can do on a whim. You can't go out and wander around hoping to come across a nice shot because you just don't have that much time.
Instead, for every shot you take during the day, try to imagine what it will look like in a twilight situation. What will that bridge look like in the soft, fading light? How about that little bay on the coast or that mountain lake? Where should you stand to make the most of that beautiful, pale light? And don't forget to get good ones too composition rules to use: think about what you could put in the foreground to increase the sense of depth in your photo.
The first step in twilight photography is to realize that it is twilight three phases has. Each phase offers a different light quality and a different photographic opportunity.
The term twilight is usually used to describe that time just after sunset. Technically, it can also be used to describe the time just before sunrise. In fact, the three phases of twilight apply to both morning and evening. In the morning they of course happen in reverse order.
Civil twilight
Civil twilight occurs when the sun disappears below the horizon and lasts about thirty minutes, depending on the season and precise location.
Perhaps the best time to take good landscape photos is at regular twilight: at those times you have access to a range of beautiful colors, from blue to pink, to purple, red and orange.
But you can still capture elements in the environment, which becomes increasingly difficult as the light fades. This is also the time when you will see the brightest stars for the first time.
Choose this civil twilight if you want a nice warm light (which fades to a cooler pink as the half hour progresses) and/or if you want to capture details in your environment.
Nautical twilight
Just after civil twilight, most of the warm colors in the sky fade, being replaced by cool purples and eventually by deeper blues. Some orange and pink shades will remain just above where the sun disappeared, but the dominant shades will be in the cool range. A lot of the detail in your landscape will be lost in the shadows, and instead you'll be capturing a lot of silhouettes.
During nautical twilight it is very important to focus only on those areas where ambient light remains, as the rest of the photo will lack details. Like the first twilight, the nautical twilight lasts approximately thirty minutes.
Astronomical twilight
Astronomical twilight is the light that remains after the first two phases of twilight have ended. For landscapes it is probably the least useful of the three stages, although with the right equipment and a long shutter speed You can take a good shot in almost any light. The only color left at astronomical twilight is deep blue, and over the next thirty minutes that blue will fade to black.
Since there isn't much ambient light left during astronomical twilight, it's a good time to look for artificial light, or use moonlight if it's available. Cityscapes look great when taken at this hour, but it may not be the right time for a shot of a remote mountain stream.
Get started
Many modern cameras have excellent low-light capabilities, but to increase your chances of capturing a flawless twilight image, bring a sturdy tripod and a cable or remote control. This eliminates the need to increase the ISO, which can of course lead to noise in the images.
For landscapes, start at around f/8 to f/11 when you need sufficient depth of field. Stop down further only when the scene requires it; a smaller aperture admits less light and very high f-numbers may also introduce diffraction. Compensate for the fading light with a longer shutter speed and use a sturdy tripod. The required shutter speed depends on the phase of twilight and the result you want.
Your camera's light meter will likely work with exposures up to thirty seconds, so at dusk you should still be able to use it to figure out how long the exposure should be. As you move further into the nautical and astronomical phases, you may need to switch to the bulb setting - where you can gamble and/or use a external light meter.
To use the bulb setting, press the shutter button once to open the shutter, then time the shot and then press it again to close the shutter (some cameras require the button to be held down with the cable release for the duration of the exposure). As with most types of low-light photography, experimenting will yield the best results
Twilight is one of those lighting situations where you want to make sure your camera captures as much information from the shot as possible, because you'll lose detail and color if you're not careful. Don't rely on your camera's automatic white balance setting at dusk, as you probably won't be happy with the results. Choose the daylight setting instead, although even that may not give perfect results.
And... shoot in RAW, if your camera gives you that option. The changing colors will make it difficult to get all the colors right, and if you shoot your photos in RAW you can adjust them in post-processing until they look exactly the way you want.
Conclusion
As with any form of night photography, safety is important. Also bring a friend, or at least make sure you tell someone where you are going and when you will return, and with cancellation insurance you can protect your trip against unexpected situations. In any case, make sure you have a well-functioning flashlight, because the path back will be a lot more difficult to find after twilight ends than before. And make it your goal to press that shutter button as many times as possible. The light will slip away, don't let those photo opportunities do the same.
