A method and apparatus for operating a camera is provided herein. During operation a camera having pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) capabilities will have its field of view (FOV) moved such that any detected blemish on the camera lies over an area with low activity (i.e., a low history of detected motion). More particularly, when it has been determined that a blemish or blemish resides on a camera's lens, a heat map of activity within the current FOV is determined. More active areas of the FOV are marked as “hot”, while less active areas of activity are marked as “cold”. The camera is then aligned such that the dirty portion of the lens does not align with any “hot” part of the heat map.