Part 10 in Gretchen’s Journey…
When I accepted the publicity position for my area Mothers of Preschoolers group, I became a blogger. I thrived in the role. After I moved on from the group, I missed writing. Starting my own blog a few weeks later was a natural move. The focus of the site is a familiar one to me: family travel across Nebraska, my longtime state. Not including pictures on the encouraging thoughts I had shared to young mothers was okay. Text alone for a travel blog is not exactly inspirational. So, I also became a photographer.
I would not consider myself a professional by any means. Yet I have definitely seen progress in my photography skills over the past year. Although someday I may choose to make an investment in equipment, right now I still use a basic Nikon or iPhone to make most of my photographs. Although I do not have any expensive equipment, I have learned an important lesson. One factor that can make all of the difference between a poor shot or a sharp one is how clean and clear my lens happens to be.
This is a recent revelation to me. We had a small polishing cloth that came with a camera, and I must confess that I never used it. Once I got the patterned Norwex Optic Scarf, I did realized that I could be taking better care of my lens.
Many differences exist between the provided black cloth and the Norwex one. Size is the obvious one. Holding the Norwex cloth to clean is much easier than trying to grasp the small black square provided by the camera company. While I cannot demonstrate softness through the computer screen, I can tell you that the textures also do not compare. The Norwex optic cloth is much softer and is what I would want touching my camera lens. As it hooks on a key chain, the Norwex Optic Cloth also ends up being compact and is about the size of a small handkerchief. The cloth is also stylishly designed. I knew I liked the Norwex optic cloth form very much, but what about the function? I decided to put the cloth to the test.
As the main user of my camera, I have been known to inadvertently touch my lens. So, I wondered what would happen to the picture quality if I put my fingerprints all over the lens and took a shot.
Possibly the picture is slightly smudged. I cleaned the lens with my Norwex optic cloth. This was what my next picture looked like.
Not a huge difference other than the second picture might be slightly sharper. I decided that this was not a true test. I needed to take drastic measures to decide if this Norwex cloth really can clean a lens.
As my kids also tend to grab my camera, I thought I needed to do something to imitate their fingers blurring the lens (since their hands tend to be grimier than mine much of the time!) At times our adventures result in a fast food lunch. French fries are a favorite of my children. Since we were at home without a slivered potato in sight, I had to come up with a similar alternative. Perhaps the fact that my husband was not home when I smeared butter all over our camera lens was a good thing.
Now the lens was properly grimy and more similar to a real life scenario. At this point, I was a tad nervous since my experimenting was now leaning toward a bold direction. But my fears were unfounded!
The Norwex Optic Cloth easily cleaned the butter off of the lens. I do need to wash the cloth now, but I think the documentation was worth it. 🙂 If you think that my pictures are a bit suspect, you can click on each photograph to see they do in fact go in order of picture taken. 🙂
Ever wondered why this Nebraska girl gets to do some blogging for the top Minnesota Norwex representative? We just happened to be college roommates a few, okay many, years ago! When she found out that I really like to write, she encouraged me to share my Norwex experiences on this blog! Our other freshman roommate happens to also be a blogger and photographer. While I might play at taking pictures, Jodi manages to capture all that is good about family and about nature, and she makes you want to go visit Oregon. Maybe someday Suzanne and I will get to take a trip out there together, and these long ago roomies can be reunited! 🙂
Until next time,
~ Gretchen
Gretch – great article. Would love to have you and Suz for a visit!
That sounds like a good plan Jodi! Thanks for stopping by my blog. 🙂
I have been told to run my glasses lenses under water to remove any potential debris, so I don’t scratch the lense. Do I still need to do this with optic scarf?
Hi Jennifer. Water isn’t necessarily, but you certainly can rinse them if you choose. Thanks for stopping by!