Don't Make It Any Harder

The other day I was taking a picture of something for this blog when I noticed a fuzzy dark spot was in the viewfinder. I figured a piece of dust or something was on the lens so I cleaned it but the dark cloudy spot was still there.

I zoomed the camera in and out and the dark spec got smaller and darker when it was on extreme zoom. I realized that the spec of "stuff" wasn't on the outside of the lens, it was on the inside.

After noticing this, I got rather frustrated because I don't need a new camera, but this one is about a year past its warranty so I couldn't have it looked after by Nikon without paying for it. Since it's a cheap camera, there's every likelihood that having it serviced would cost at least a third of the camera's original purchase price. I wondered if there were any camera shops out there which specialize in cleaning the inside of cameras and, if so, where they were and how hard it'd be to get to one. I also inspected the screws in the camera and thought about taking it apart and trying to clean it myself. I've never done such a thing though, and I don't know how likely it is that I'd manage to destroy the camera in trying (pretty likely, I'd guess). I considered all possible options and wasn't particularly happy with any of the available solutions.

Later on, I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when something occurred to me. A piece of something was stuck on the lens inside. I didn't have to clean it, all I had to do was get it off the lens. I shook the camera and the dark spot was gone.

Rather than any of the costly, risky, or time-consuming solutions I was pondering, all I had to do was find an effective one. This was a little lesson for me in not making things any harder than they have to be and in looking for the easiest fix rather than the most permanent one. Sometimes, the easy one will do.