Sameer Puri D.D.S. The goal of cosmetic dentistry is to provide lifelike and esthetic restorations for your patients. Without the proper camera system, typically you are getting poor quality photographs which makes it difficult to communicate your esthetic masterpieces with your patients. I think a proper camera set up is essential to any clinicians armamentarium. Look at the photo below. This does not happen with a point and shoot or any other type of digital camera. What you need to make this happen is a professional set up with the appropriate lenses and flash and obviously the proper settings for the camera itself.
For my anterior photography, I use a Nikon with a 100mm macro lens with an attached flash. Canon also works well but I just happen to use Nikon and once you go with one system and buy all the lenses, it is difficult to switch. There are two types of flashes that you can use. A ring flash or a twin flash. We will discuss ring flashes in a future blog but for all my anterior cases, I use a twin flash as you can see from the photo below:
The twin flash allows you to custom direct the light on the teeth without over saturating the teeth with light. This allows the photos to come out with a detailed representation of the colors and textures. You can also detach the flash from the housing and have the light come from a different direction as well. A ring flash will have the flash directly on the lens and it will cause you to have a bit more of a washed out look for anterior photos because the flash is so close to the lens. Bottom line, for the best photos, the further away your flash is from your lens, the better your photos will be. The better the color representation, the softer and more detailed the color and texture. So if the twin flash pictured above is so good for anteriors, will it work well for posterior shots? Yes and no. It will work great but you have the potential for the flash to be blocked by a cheek or the lips resulting in a shadow. It is certainly possible but a bit more challenging for the new user. My recommendation is to use the ring flash for posterior photography and the twin flash for anterior shots until you become more proficient. You can purchase these items online at a number of retailers or visit www.photomed.net - they specialize in dental photography and have great kits set up for dentists and essentially the cameras are turnkey. If you are a do it your self kind of doc, buy the macro lens and flash online.
