[/caption] When the storm clouds rumble through the Columbia River Gorge you can get some great photos when standing along one of the many cliffs that surround the gorge. This photo was taken on a very overcast and rainy early summer late morning last week. The clouds were so thick and abundant that I could have spent all day photographing them. Unfortunately I was wanting to beat some of the rain and try to photograph as many waterfalls as possible before I got soaked. However, I ended up getting soaked anyways but was fortunate to get some great shots of the gorge and the waterfalls. This is exactly why the Columbia River Gorge is one of the most spectacular places on earth… it offers some of the most amazing and abundant waterfalls as well as the most amazing cliff views in America. This photo was taken near the Horsetail falls trailhead and is only about a 1 mile hike from the old highway. You pass two awesome waterfalls on your way to the viewing area and there is plenty of room to set up your tripod and wait for the clouds to open up. However, on this particular day I was moving pretty quickly so I didn’t bother setting up with my tripod. In order to ensure that I wouldn’t end up with any camera shake or blur I removed my CIR-PL and made sure to turn on the IS. I was still able to keep the ISO at 100 and set the white balance at -1. The light was still pretty bright since it was about 11:30am and the clouds were somewhat thin above me. I did make sure to attach my warming filter and positioned the camera at about a 30 degree angle in order to avoid too much glare in the background. The camera mode was in Normal/Program so the aperture was set at F-7 and the shutter speed at 1/197 second. This helped prevent any camera shake or blur. I was using my Sigma 17-70mm lens and set the focal length at 38mm in order to keep the foliage from entering in the foreground. You just want to make sure and keep a steady hand and lightly press down on the shutter or you will end up with blurry photo.