To take advantage of the unusually mild weather, my wife and I made the trek up to a neat little nature center north of downtown. One of the main attractions at the facility is an enclosed butterfly habitat, which houses something like 1,000 butterflies at once. We brought a camera along to capture some of the sights, but this proved to be much more difficult than expected.

Apparently, the butterflies — many of which are native to tropical climates — require warm temperatures and extremely high humidity to survive. As a result, our camera lens fogged up immediately, and no amount of cleaning it or moving to a cooler part of the room would help. Short of bringing an underwater camera enclosure, there would be no way to get decent pictures in the room.

Since taking pictures is a big part of any trip to a zoo or other nature exhibit, the facility operators should make an effort to inform customers about any factors that might get in the way of this. Ideally, that information should be disclosed prior to the point that you purchase a ticket. By setting the proper expectations upfront, customers will be able to make an informed decision about whether they still want to pay for admission, and fewer people will feel like they overpaid for an experience that left them with an album full of murky photos.