How to Capture Breathtaking Blue Hour Photos in the Camera (VIDEO)
This comprehensive guide is designed to help you discover the magic of Blue Hour landscape photography and capture the best images possible during this beautiful time of day just before sunrise or shortly after the sun drops below the horizon.
Experienced outdoor photographers love shooting during these fleeting moments when soft shades of violet and blue paints the landscape. Today’s straightforward advice from Mads Peter Iversen will enable you to capture stunning, tranquil scenes as the sky transitions through a variety of cool and moody tones.
Iversen is an acclaimed Danish pro whose popular YouTube channel sets aside gear evaluations in favor of inspirational techniques for landscape shooters of all skill levels who want to infuse their imagery with a bit of artistry and emotion. He says his goal is to create instructional videos that are as timeless as possible.
Iversen covers a lot of ground in the next 12 minutes, beginning with a quick discussion about the differences between civil, nautical and astronomical twilight. Timing is crucially important for this subset of landscape photography, so it’s important to have a pretty good idea of how long Blue Hour will last wherever you happen to be.
The discussion also provides recommendations for several key camera settings, including exposure setting for arriving at an appropriate compromise between shutter speed, aperture, and ISO as colors quickly fades from the sky. As you’ll see, deft framing skills also play a very important role .
Iversen then takes a deep dive into advanced techniques such as multiple exposures and time blending. He also explains how to use a polarizing filter on your lens to enhance images and accentuate the captivating Blue Hour effects.
Iversen’s popular YouTube channel has almost 250K avid subscribers who appreciate his game-changing landscape photography shooting and post-processing advice.
And speaking of visual storytelling and mood-packed photographs, be sure to watch the recent we posted with a 20-year veteran who explains how she unlocks “color power” in the camera to capture photographs full of emotion and compositional excellence.
