This month's ancillaries presents a very detailed and explicit insight in to Dental Photography which is fast becoming one of the most indispensible of all ancillary dental equipment. Dr.Mukul Dabholkar, himself a very avid dental photographer, brings this excellent informative piece to you.
With the advent of various elective dental procedures in
cosmetic and aesthetic dentistry, dental photography has gained
tremendous importance. It is almost becoming an essential tool in
the armamentarium of a dental office. For the uninitiated the
following is a list of items which will set you up into dental
photography.
The expense involved could be as high as US$ 5000 or if you shop wisely and do not want top of the line equipment with brand names it could be as low as US$ 1000. If possible you should buy two camera bodies of the same make so that one contains a slide roll and the other a photographic roll so that all accessories are interchangable. Lenses and camera bodies must have protective caps to protect them against dust. Once you have the base equipment lined up in your dental office, you can get on with the actual procedure of taking the shots.
Now that you have the equipment the next step is to get the consumables. The primary ingredient is the film. You can purchase either color reversal film i.e. film for making slides or regular film i.e. for making prints. Appropriate selection of a film is very essential. A film with a speed measured as 100 ASA is recommended and a brand name, which is easily available and will continue to be easily procured over the years. Films available in the supermarket as inhouse films are not really recommended. Further, developing and printing should be done at the same source once you have identified a good source to get consistency in your exposures over the years. Buying films off the shelf and not sticking to brand names and changing sources for developing and printing may lead to inconsistency in your exposures. STANDARDIZATION IS THE KEYWORD.
Getting familiar with the camera is important. In my experience it takes a minimum of twenty rolls exposure over a period of six months to keep your mistakes to the minimum. Further, always take three exposures of the same view, because the patient might move, or anything can go wrong and A SHOT LOST IS LOST FOREVER. It is prudent to keep a slide roll in one camera body and a negative roll in the other, so if one camera fails or your settings are wrong, you could have a back-up. Duplication from one type of film to the other is tedious and the details drop quite a bit. Other than the film, also maintain an inventory of extra cells (batteries), both for the flash as well as for the camera. When your rolls come back from developing, immediately view them, file and keep them away. Every case in a different file.
Storage is always in a sealed dry area (no damp) to prevent fungal damage to the camera as well as photographs. Allowing unviewed rolls to pile up can get very confusing and frustrating. At no stage, after loading a carousel should it be handled without the safety cover. If you turn the carousel upside down and drop the slides, to rearrange them in the same order can be tedious. However, if you expose all cases in the same order and file them in the same manner, then life is much easier. And finally, expose any and every case which you think is important. It is only when you view your own cases do you see your mistakes on the enlarged view. It is by seeing these mistakes you could improve your work and gradually you would learn to see your mistakes with a naked eye. Exposure of most cases is wise; even though at a later stage that case may not really be useful for presentation, etc.. These cases can always be thrown away say two years down the line, but for a case to turn out far better than we expect, and not have the pre-operative views is extremely frustrating.
The next step is to tune your camera to the demands of the
photography being done. The variables involved in this are
Depending on these factors the quality of the exposure varies. Now since standardization is the keyword, the same brand of film will be used (100 ASA speed), the camera shutter speed is generally set at 1/125 of a second and the flash intensity also remains constant since the same flash is used for all photographs. This leaves us with two variables, the object distance and the aperture i.e. the F stop. The F stop is calculated by considering the object distance which is set as per the requirements of the magnification of the object required.
The distance from the object is usually set for the various views in dental photography. Say for a facial shot, the setting on the macro lens is 1:10 magnification or approximately five feet away from the object. The full smile or arch views are 1:2 magnification approximately 12" away from the object and 1:1 magnification approximately 6" away from the object. Now most flashes have a small table on the rear side of the flash. By checking the speed of the film with the distance of the lens from the object. The intersections of these two reference points will give you the aperture or the F/ stop setting for the flash. However, this setting could be verified since we are looking for the best exposure available for that flash.
Most professional photographers have a meter which is held approximately in line with that object to be photographed and from the flash. The flash is activated and the meter gives a direct reading of the F/stop. For those who do not have access to such a meter another method is available. Keeping the camera lens fixed at a particular magnification say 1:10 for full face view that is at a distance of approximately 5 feet away from the object a series of exposures are made in the right sequence keeping a log of the same view. Each exposure is at a higher F/stop than the earlier that is at F/2.5, next F/4, next F/5.6 in increasing order right upto F/32, so also for your 1:2 view and 1:1 view. In the end 24 exposures will be available for viewing. By studying these exposures the best F/stop for your flash can then be noted down. This should tally with your calculation of the table at the back of your flash but this is definitely the right F/stop for your flash. This is known as calliberating your flash. The recommended F/stop for 1:10 full face is F/16, and for 1:2 and 1:1 the F/stop is normally the same and the recommended F/stop for these to magnifications is F/32. This insures a good depth of field. Your flash should be callibrated every year.
Once you are all set, just point and shoot the moment you see a case worth recording. Just keep in mind that it can get a bit expensive to start taking shots of every next patient that you treat. As you keep on taking more and more shots your skill in handling the camera will increase and you will acheive perfection in taking good dental photographs.
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