[/caption] Downtown Portland as seen from the Portland Viaduct bridge that’s located on SW Vista Ave. Trying to find the perfect panoramic view of Portland, without any obscurities, can be very frustrating and pretty much impossible unless you live in one of the many mansions that line the west hills. Unfortunately, there aren’t any parks like Seattle that provides the best views of the city. The tall and lush trees almost always play the biggest role in hiding the best views. Portland is also a very long and spread out city that makes it impossible to get all of the tall building in one photo. You pretty much have to choose which buildings you’re going to leave out. On this particular photo I ended up leaving out the Lloyd Center in order to include the KOIN tower and Wells Fargo building. I also had to crop out 1/4 of the bottom portion of the photo in order to remove the less than photogenic street below. A car lot and telephone poles don’t make for the best scenery. I decided to include this photo since it provides the best shot of the city, which includes the majority of the buildings that can be seen from the east. You can see Mt. Hood in the distance as well as part of the hallowed out Federal building with its crane sticking up. The one thing that I think really destroys a photo and that’s an unfinished building with a huge crane jutting out. I took this photo with my Sigma 17-70mm lens and attached my CIR-PL and warming filter since the sun had only just set and the light was still a little overexposed. The sunset was at 8:38pm and I took this shot at 8:55pm and the sun had set directly behind me. I made sure to use my tripod, bubble level and remote switch to avoid any blur or camera shake. The camera was in Program/Normal mode so the aperture was at F-3.2 and the shutter speed was at 1/6 second. I set the ISO at 100 and the white balance at -0.7. I usually visit the bridge during the day and I have never been happy with any of the photos mostly due to the color but if you visit during sunset the light is much better.