How do golden hour and twilight behave in Iceland near the summer solstice?
Asked 2/12/2012
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I’m planning a landscape trip to Iceland and I’m trying to understand how golden hour and blue/twilight periods change at high latitudes. Some calculators show normal sunset/sunrise timings up to mid-May, then suddenly report very long golden-hour or twilight durations.
Near the poles, does this mean:
- the sun stays above the horizon all night,
- or it dips just below the horizon and remains in twilight,
- and how does that affect whether the light is ‘golden’ versus ‘blue’?
For Iceland specifically, when should I expect the most useful extended golden light for landscape photography?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
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Iceland is so far north that depending where you are in the country, you get significantly different results. Compare the following chart from gaisma.com for Reykjavík, which is in the south:

With this chart, for Ísafjörður in the north:

As you can see, between mid June and the beginning of July, the sun never actually sets in the north of Iceland, however in Reykjavík it DOES set, but it stays light enough to remain twilight throughout sundown (the pink area). At this latitude, there would be little to no 'blue hour' as it rarely gets dark enough, even in Reykjavík.
To answer your final question, the best time to go for as much golden hour as possible would be between mid May and late July, as this is when you get the most twilight (as much as 5 hours), and as it occurs in the early hours of the morning, you will not be competing with tourists for the best scenes.
Note that as Iceland is not on the meridian, but uses GMT throughout the year, the sun's lowest point occurs at around 1:30 am, not midnight, so you can still get 'midnight sun' in Reykjavík around the summer solstice, even though the sun does eventually set (around 12:05 am).
Oh, and have a great time. Iceland is a wonderful country!
Originally by user456. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user456
14y ago
0
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At high latitudes, the sun’s path becomes very shallow to the horizon, so sunrise/sunset and twilight can last much longer than at lower latitudes.
In Iceland, what happens depends on where you are. In the north, around mid-June to early July, the sun may not set at all. In Reykjavík and farther south, it can still set, but often not far enough below the horizon for true darkness, so twilight lasts through the night.
That means:
- if the sun stays above the horizon, you can have very long low-angle warm light,
- if it dips only slightly below the horizon, you get extended twilight but little or no true “blue hour” in the usual dark-sky sense,
- full civil/nautical/astronomical twilight definitions still apply, but near the solstice those phases may be compressed, absent, or never reach darkness.
For landscape photography in Iceland, the longest stretches of low, warm light are generally from mid-May through late July, with especially extended evening/morning light near the solstice. The exact effect varies a lot between southern Iceland and the far north, so check timings for your specific location rather than for Iceland as a whole.
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