[/caption] You can get some of the best views of Downtown Portland from the Sellwood neighborhood in SE Portland. Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, Sellwood park and almost anywhere along the river offers some unique photo opportunities. You might also see a bald eagles or blue heron when you’re there. It also offers the best views of SW Portland and OHSU up on the hill. You can also see as far north as Lloyd center. However, some of the best views are of the Wetlands that team along the rivers edge. I spent almost the entire day hiking up and down the parks as well as the river and took well over 1,000 shots. I was using my Canon T1I along with my Sigma 17-70mm lens. I had the focal length at 50mm in order to frame the city skyline along with the marina and buildings stretching along the river. I had the camera mode in Program/Normal so the aperture was at F-7 and the shutter speed at 1/200 second. I was using my warming filter and CIR-PL in order to defuse some of the harsh light emitting from the water and clouds. I also wanted to saturate the sky as much as possible in order to avoid any overexposure. I had the ISO at 100 and the white balance at 0 due to the low clouds. Since I took this shot at 12:00pm I thought that the sky would be completely washed out but the incoming storm clouds kept most of the day interesting and created an awesome personality.