• Skip to main content

Digital Dental Photography

Digital Photography and Workflow for Dentists

  • Home
  • Gear
    • Accessories
  • Clinical Dental Photography
    • Basic Settings
    • Patient and Camera Positions
    • Quadrants and Occlusals
    • Extraoral Photos
  • Software
    • Photo Organization
  • Portrait Photography Basics
  • Dental Websites
    • WordPress Websites
  • CE Reviews

4 Lens "Positions" for Dental Pictures with the Canon 100mm macro

January 10, 2010 by Charles Payet

In dentistry, there will typically be 4 “types” of pictures that you will take, regardless of the purposes for which you take them.  They are:

  1. The Full Face/Portrait
  2. Full Smile/Retracted Smile or Full Arch
  3. Quadrant
  4. Single-tooth (not very often except for endo)

When shooting each of these, I have found that there are certain “positions” of the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens that approximate these consistently and easily.  Remember: DO NOT HAVE EITHER YOUR LENS OR CAMERA ON AUTO; BOTH SHOULD BE ON MANUAL AND MANUAL FOCUS.  To make it nice and easy, check out these pictures, then download the “Cheat Sheet” for use in your office.

For a FULL FACE/PORTRAIT, position the lens like this:

For a FULL/RETRACTED SMILE and FULL ARCH:

For a QUADRANT or 1:2 Picture:

For a SINGLE-TOOTH:

I’ll soon have an equivalent set of pictures for the Canon 60mm f/2.8 macro lens, and eventually for Nikon and Sigma lenses.

Filed Under: Dental Photography

Copyright © 2023 · Atmosphere Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in