Pho­tog­ra­phy has been an inte­gral part of my den­tal prac­tice since open­ing in 1999, although it was orig­i­nally slide film and a Yashica Den­tal Eye III.  The advent of the Canon Dig­i­tal Rebel in 2004 sig­naled a new begin­ning, as afford­able dig­i­tal SLR cam­eras came on the mar­ket. That was my first foray into dig­i­tal den­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, and my inter­est and pas­sion since then has only grown. Another col­league and ter­rific pho­tog­ra­pher, Dr. Tony Soileau, was key to ignit­ing the fire with his por­trait pho­tograpy course for den­tists at the Nash Insti­tute. It is now an indis­pens­able and crit­i­cal part of my daily den­tal prac­tice, as well as a pas­sion for pho­tog­ra­phy out­side the office.

THE Defin­i­tive Online Source for Den­tal Photography

It has taken me years of prac­tice, thou­sands of dol­lars in CE, untold hours learn­ing soft­ware; if pho­tog­ra­phy were not a seri­ous pas­sion, I can’t imag­ine hav­ing done all that.  Most den­tists will never have the time, nor desire, to learn every­thing as I have had to do.  There are many CE courses avail­able that teach you how to take high-quality pic­tures of your den­tistry; what I have not found until now, how­ever, is a sin­gle place that will teach you every­thing you need to know for not only tak­ing pic­tures, but using them effec­tively.  And that is my goal for this web­site — to make it (in time) the one source you need to learn every aspect, from tak­ing the pic­tures to stor­ing them to using them effectively.

Mak­ing it Easy to Inte­grate Pho­tog­ra­phy into Your Practice

The good news, though, is that inte­grat­ing den­tal pho­tog­ra­phy into your prac­tice is now eas­ier and more afford­able than ever, and what’s even bet­ter than that is that the soft­ware is becom­ing more afford­able and eas­ier to use. It can still be a daunt­ing task, though, as you must decide the fol­low­ing (to list a few):

1. Which cam­era and which acces­sories do you need?
2. What soft­ware best suits your needs?
3. How will you use the pic­tures in your practice?
4. How do you teach your­self and your den­tal assi­tants and hygien­ists how to use the camera?
5. How do you store and back-up your pictures?
6. How to trou­bleshoot when pic­tures come out badly?

Ulti­mately it comes down to is this:

If you can’t get the pic­tures from the cam­era to using them quickly and eas­ily, what’s the point?

Over time, I’ll be dis­cussing the fun­da­men­tals of pho­tog­ra­phy, of DSLRs, and really.….all the whats/whens/whys/hows of using dig­i­tal den­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. Fol­low along, feel free to com­ment and add your own expe­ri­ence, or ask questions.