Clinical Dental Photography Intro

If you aren’t already a Townie, you’re miss­ing out on the most amaz­ing online den­tal resource/forum/community in exis­tence, in my hum­ble opin­ion.  As an active mem­ber for many years, it has been where I learned more about den­tistry, both busi­ness and clin­i­cal, than any­where else, as well as being the begin­ning of many friendships.

Dr. August de Oliveira

There are a tremen­dous num­ber of very tal­ented clin­i­cians on DT, one of whom hap­pens to be Dr. August de Oliviera.  Over the years, August has been a tremen­dous con­trib­u­tor on the CEREC threads; he also has authored an ebook, a real book, and web­site on plac­ing den­tal implants.

Most recently, though, August started a thread called Clin­i­cal Pho­tog­ra­phy for Dum­mies, in which he is demon­strat­ing how to posi­tion your­self, your cam­era, your mir­ror, and your patient in order to con­sis­tently and pre­dictably take high-quality intra­o­ral pho­tos.  I think he MAY have a bit too much free time on his hands, though, as he’s using a 3D imag­ing pro­gram to do it, but that’s a dif­fer­ent story.  LOL

With August’s per­mis­sion, I am pub­lish­ing his work here for those who need help in learn­ing to take clin­i­cal pic­tures, as he as done such a superb job.  Due to the amount of mate­r­ial, I will break it into sev­eral pages, so please look back to the Nav­i­ga­tion Menu for the next page once you’re done.  With no fur­ther ado:

How to Take Qual­ity Intra­o­ral Pho­tos by Dr. Oliveira: Introduction

I’ve been on a bit of a den­tal pho­tog­ra­phy kick lately.  A few years back when I was learn­ing CEREC or when I got back into implants, I was really good about tak­ing pic­tures.  What I found that the more I did it, the bet­ter my den­tistry got, and also it took less time to get the right pic­tures as I was in sort of a groove.  I would not say that my prac­tice is any busier now, I have just got­ten lazy with pic­ture tak­ing.  So I’m doing what any lazy den­tist does, I am del­e­gat­ing it!

Every now and then when I have had time I’ve got­ten the mir­rors and cam­eras out and have been work­ing with my assis­tants tak­ing pic­tures.  What I also observed in doing some CEREC in office train­ing, is that some of the real basic things like pho­tog­ra­pher posi­tion, hold­ing the cam­era, posi­tion­ing the patient, etc are often glossed over in arti­cles in the mag­a­zines or in books.  And to be hon­est, I really did not think much about it, I just moved around until I got a good shot.

In the pho­tog­ra­phy forum there has been some great “for dum­mies threads” already done by Chip and oth­ers.  These really have focused on the tec­ni­cal aspects of using cam­eras.  What I’d like to “dummy down” is to really cook­book how to take, say a max­il­lary occlusal or a upper right sexr­tant shot.

Con­tinue with Patient and Cam­era Positions