Relative Something

There is a speck on an internal lens of my trusty pocket camera. It showed up on images I captured this morning. I meant to feature some disappearing tracks in the snow, but I got an unwelcome distraction instead.

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Bummer!

I consider myself to be something of a hack photographer. I love framing and capturing images and cropping results for aesthetic effect, but I don’t put energy or attention toward camera details. The three pillars of photography, settings for shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are details I leave up to the auto mode of the camera.

For convenience, I long ago settled on a pocket camera so I could take pictures on the fly while out and about on my daily activities without the burden of a sensitive piece of equipment dangling around my neck or over my shoulder. I tend to be pretty rough on my equipment.

My previous pocket cameras which took fantastic pictures were Canon PowerShots, but the motorized pop-out lenses couldn’t handle the abuse of dust and debris that I subjected them to. My camera retailer steered me to the waterproof Nikon COOLPIX.

It’s been a trusty friend and has served me well, but my abuse is taking a toll. It needs a thorough cleaning.

Not a cleaning that I will do myself. I’m hoping the cost of professional cleaning is less than the price of a new camera. I don’t like the thought of this becoming a disposable item.

Most importantly, I don’t want to have blurry spots on my pictures of the morning sky on a beautiful December day.

Such a distraction.

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