What is the best time to take pictures with your action camera

GoPro is especially known for recording videos, but we all have seen spectacular images on Instagram of athletes and professionals, and we wonder are they from this planet?
One of the most important parts about getting a great picture with your action camera is by shooting at the right time.

These types of cameras are usually made to take pictures in bright places, but in some action cameras such as GoPro, you have a feature to take night photos as well. You can also, play with the different angles of the sun’s position to obtain images like a true professional. Do not be afraid, sometimes lying on the floor or crouching generates incredible effects.

All action cameras have different settings and different ways on how to use it but on most of them, you can control some settings such as light settings, exposure, contrast, and other settings. Taking pictures with your GoPro is quite different from using a DSLR or compact camera, but you normally have just a few settings depending on what action camera you have.

Best time to shoot

Generally, the best time to shoot with an action camera is any time of the day there is sun and you have a lot of light. But there are some times of the day where you’re pictures are gonna look a lot better.

The golden hour: the golden hour is an expression used in the world of photography, it happens in the first hours of sunlight, the sunrise, and the last hours of light of the day, the sunset.

In technical aspects, the lighting is softer and more diffuse than at other times of the day. The shadows are very soft reaching, almost non-existent since the sun is below the horizon. Because of this location of the sun, the light makes a reflection in the atmosphere, creating an indirect light. During this time of the day, the sky and the sun make an orange and cyan color which are complementary colors and look great together.

Tips to shoot on the golden hour

The dime during sunshine and sunset is called the golden hour, although, in reality, it lasts two hours. And its name is due to the quality of light in the environment during those minutes.

Any good photographer should know, the quality of light has a direct effect on the quality of the image, the noon light, for example, increases the shadows, making it necessary to use fill light, to soften the darkness of the shadows.

You need to have planned what you are going to photograph in advance.

Best time to shoot underwater

Shooting underwater is a bit different than shooting above water, in above water we talk a lot about shooting in the “golden hour”, but sunshine and sunset doesn’t work at all underwater since the water doesn’t have enough light from the sun and is very dark, leaving you bad results for your GoPro pictures.

The best time to shoot underwater with your action camera is any time when the sun is very bright, you can get even better results if there are no clouds to get the most brightness.

If you are going scuba-diving or going deeper you will lose some sunlight so it’s recommended that you get some extra lights for your action camera, as well as a red filter which will color correct your underwater videos providing you with vibrant tropical colors.

Best time to shoot for half above and half under-water effect

If you have GoPro dome you need to know that not all times of the day the picture is gonna look good. If you don’t have a GoPro dome or don’t know what it is yet, you should check out our review on it, The GoPro Dome is an amazing accessory to shoot pictures in the water, you can get astonishing over and under the water, effect with it and just improve your underwater photography in general. (Click Here to check out our review)

The light on which you are shooting is very important since it can change your picture completely depending on what time you are shooting and how much sunlight you have. Sunshine and sunset are a great time to shoot with your action camera above water but below the water, you are gonna get a very dark underwater picture.

The best time to shoot with the dome is around mid-day when the sunlight is very bright and you’ll get amazing results above and underwater.

How to take Night-photos

The latest GoPro’s and other action cameras have a “night mode” to take pictures and timelapses at night. This mode is designed for low-light environments for incredible landscapes to street lights.

So when the sun goes down you don’t need to put away your action camera, you just need to switch to night mode. Night photo lets you capture pictures at night with up to 30 seconds in exposure, along with other different times you can test out for yourself and see which one works best for you.

With this mode you can also shoot pictures of the stars in your GoPro as well as timelapses of the night. The “nigh-lapse” allows you to capture a timelapse of the night with the same settings as the night photo.

Hope this blog was helpful and you’ve found the answers you were looking for, we recommend you to check out our other accessory blogs if you are looking for some awesome equipment to add to your setup. Click here to check out our other accessory blogs.