My First Real Attempt at Golden Hour Landscape Shots (And What I Learned the Hard Way)

Pretty hard, it turns out. But also really fun, and I feel like I learned more in those two sessions than I had in the previous six months combined. So I wanted to write this up while it's still fresh because maybe it'll save somebody else some of the same headaches.

The Location and Planning Part

I drove out to a reservoir about 45 minutes from my house. There's a spot where you can park and walk down to a flat area near the water with some hills behind it. I'd actually scouted it on foot a few weeks before, which I'm really glad I did because it meant I knew roughly where I wanted to position myself and what direction the light would be coming from. I used the app PhotoPills to check where the sun was going to set and when golden hour would actually start. If you haven't used that app, seriously look into it. It's not free but it's worth it.

I got there about an hour and a half before sunset, which gave me time to set up and also just fly around and get a feel for the area. Wind was maybe 8 mph out of the northwest, pretty manageable. No other people around, which meant I wasn't stressing about flying over anyone.

Camera Settings ? Where I Went Wrong First

Okay so this is where I made my first dumb mistake. I had the Mini 3 Pro set to auto exposure because that's just how I'd been flying. I took maybe 20 shots and when I pulled them up later on my laptop they were all over the place ? some blown out, some weirdly dark, and none of them had that warm punchy look I was going for. Auto is fine when you're just flying around but for serious photography you really need to take control.

I went back out four days later and this time I switched to manual mode and shot in RAW. For the settings I ended up at ISO 100, f/2.8 (the Mini 3 Pro doesn't give you a ton of aperture options but f/2.8 is the widest), and then I adjusted shutter speed to get the exposure right ? ended up around 1/200 for most shots during golden hour. I also turned on the histogram overlay so I could actually see if I was clipping the highlights. That made a huge difference.

One thing I read before going out was about the 180-degree shutter rule for video, but for stills I was more focused on just keeping ISO low and not blowing out that sky. The sky during golden hour is doing all kinds of crazy stuff and if you let it blow out you've basically lost the shot.

I Also Tried an ND Filter for the First Time

I picked up a cheap set of ND filters off Amazon ? I think it was like a 4-pack with ND4, ND8, ND16, and ND64. I used the ND16 for most of the shoot. Honestly I'm not totally sure I needed it for stills in the way you need them for video, but I do think it helped me slow down the shutter a little and get a slightly smoother look on the water. The reservoir had some gentle ripples and with a slightly slower shutter you could see just a little bit of silkiness to it. Nothing dramatic but I liked it.

Putting on the filter was kind of nerve-wracking the first time because I was standing there trying to snap this little piece of glass onto my drone and I was terrified of dropping it or scratching the lens. It wasn't hard though, just a little fiddly.

Composition Stuff I Was Thinking About

I'm not a trained photographer or anything so I've just been reading and watching a lot of stuff online about composition. The main things I tried to do were use the rule of thirds (put the horizon on the upper third so you're showing more water and foreground), look for leading lines, and try different altitudes. I think the altitude thing is something people don't experiment with enough. I see a lot of drone shots that are all taken from like 200-300 feet and they all start to look the same. I tried some shots from maybe 80 feet and some from up around 350 feet and they feel totally different.

The lower shots felt more intimate I guess ? you could see the texture of the water surface and the rocks along the edge. The higher shots gave you more of that sweeping landscape feel with the hills in the background. Both were useful, just for different things.

I also spent some time just flying laterally and tilting the gimbal at different angles instead of just pointing it straight down or straight forward. Some of my favorite shots from the session were with the gimbal at maybe 45 degrees tilted down while I was slowly moving sideways. Kind of an awkward angle to think about but it gave an interesting perspective on the shoreline.

Editing in Lightroom

I use Lightroom Classic and this is where the RAW files really paid off. The JPEGs I had from my first session were pretty locked in ? not much you could do with them. The RAW files from session two I was able to really work with. I pulled the highlights down hard on the sky, brought up the shadows in the foreground, added some warmth and a little bit of dehaze. Nothing crazy, I'm not trying to make it look fake.

The colors during golden hour were already doing most of the work honestly. I just tried to make sure the edit matched what I remembered seeing when I was standing there.

What I'd Do Differently

A few things. I'd bring a jacket ? I was out there until after sunset and it got cold fast. I'd also bring a second battery because I used almost all of battery one just messing around during my first practice pass and then had to rush through the actual golden hour window. Also I'd get there even earlier and do a full test flight first so I'm not figuring out my camera settings when the light is already going.

But overall I'm really happy with how session two went. I got maybe five or six shots I'm genuinely proud of, which doesn't sound like a lot but for me at this point it felt like a big deal. I'm planning to head back out to the same spot in a few weeks and try it in different conditions ? maybe some cloud cover which I've heard can actually look amazing for this kind of shot.

If you're also kind of new to aerial photography and haven't tried golden hour yet, I'd really recommend just going for it. Even if your first attempt goes like mine did ? kind of sideways ? you'll learn a ton.