Keep Your Lens Clean
It’s been a great day. Vacation has gone great, and you’ve had beautiful weather. You arrive home from vacation and open up your photos and find one of your favorites is blurry.
It turns out, your 3 year old got to your camera when you didn’t expect it and put a food and saliva film right on your lens. I have to admit, in earlier years, I hadn’t always been diligent about making sure my lens was clean. Unfortunately, the only likely outcome is a bit of disappointment.
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How do I combat this? Well the answer is easy but hard in practice. Consider you’re a mom on the go. Off to the beach, the library or the playground. You grab your camera on the way out the door hoping the batteries still have charge in them. Life with little ones moves very quickly.
Of course you’ll never get “the shot” if your batteries aren’t charged. What if the batteries were charged, you’ve remembered your camera, the kids are together, happy as can be, and you get the shot! The only problem is that the lens has goo all over it.
Kids are born to drool like Saint Bernards. They drool on everything. The t.v. screen, the telephone, you name it. It gets everywhere. So logically, keeping your lens clean should rank as high as batteries in order of importance.
There are 400 ways to ensure your lens stays clean. My few are:
- Keep the lens covered with a lens cap. If you are using a point and shoot, turn the power off and make sure the lens door shuts
- Avoid keeping the camera in a place where a child or a dog could have a lickfest on it. A purse, or a camera bag helps greatly for this.
- Keep a lens cloth handy. If you wear glasses, this should be an easy addition to your routine. If not, keep a lens cloth in your purse or your camera bag. Only take it out in order to wash! Otherwise you won’t have it when you need it.
- When you arrive at your destination, before unpacking the kids from the car, open your camera case or purse and give the lens a once-over. If you decide you will do it after, you know that you will be distracted by crying, complaining, snack, bathroom break, etc.
If you keep your batteries charged, and your lens clean, you have increased your likelihood of getting that prized shot that only lasts a fleeting moment…
