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Dear fans, friends, and visitors:

Due to some recent issues arising in my practice, I am taking a short (hopefully only a month or so) sabbatical from my work here on DentalDigitalPhotography.com.  Nothing horrible, don’t get me wrong, but my practice is my top priority in order to provide a living for my family, and there’s just a lot of work that must be done in a short period of time to re-solidify the progress we’ve made over the last 18 months there.

So don’t worry, I shouldn’t be gone long, and then I’ll be back.  😀

My apologies to all for not having more information added recently; I’ve been a little distracted with the building of a new office for my SmilesbyPayet Dentistry practice, which should open in mid-May, after which I should have more time to FINALLY create the step-by-step videos for how to do a lot of the most common things in dental photography.  So if you can be patient just a teensy bit longer…..you won’t be disappointed!

While my goal is, naturally, to provide practicing dentists with virtually everything they need to know to seamlessly integrate digital photography into their practices, there are obviously many colleagues who’ve done a great deal of work in this arena already.  Among those is certainly a dentist whom every dentist should know: Dr. Frank Spear.  Besides being a terrific teacher and phenomenal practicing dentist, he has put together a long series of DVDs on topics that cover about everything you could want to know in dentistry – including photography.

With that in mind, I’d like to HIGHLY recommend that you take a look at his website, www.SpearEducation.com.  Talk about one incredible resource!  He has a series of DVDs devoted to photography, and they provide practical tips and techniques on everything, including color management of your printer and monitor (extremely important for shade communication to laboratories in demanding cosmetic cases), case presentation, and more.

Check it out!

When it comes to taking pictures for dentistry, one of the most common questions I get is along the lines of, “How do I know which settings to use for the different kinds of pictures?”  Since most dentists, as well as their staff members, are not professional photographers, the DSLR cameras I recommend often seem big and really complicated.

Here’s the truth: once you get the basic settings written down and memorized, there will only be ONE setting that you have to change on the camera body, which basically means that the big, complicated-looking, fancy camera you’re holding will be turned into a POINT & SHOOT camera, and about everyone can deal with that. 

So what settings do you need to use?  Using the KISS Principle, here you go:

FULL FACE:

• ISO 200
• Shutter speed 1/200
• f-stop f/8.0

EVERYTHING ELSE:

• ISO 200
• Shutter speed 1/200
• f-stop f/25

 As you can see, the ONLY setting you really need to change of the 3 is the f/stop.  See, I told you it would be easy!

Soon I’ll be giving a more detailed explanation of what those settings mean, as well as a few other settings to round out the complete list that you need to make dental photography truly simple.

Oooooooo, as a camera geek (who would love to have a LOT more gear than I do), I am very excited to (hopefully) be picking up my new Canon 7D DSLR today.  18MP, true 1080p HD video, ISO expansion up to 12800 with a VERY usable 3200 and 6400 ISO, the 8fps will be awesome for shooting my daughter’s competitive cheer events (Go Odyssey!)

As of right now, given the $1700 price tag, this is not a camera that most dentists will want for their office, and with the Canon T1i being a very good alternative for a much more affordable price (only $649), I am not recommending that you run out and replace any old DSLR you have for your dental photography with the 7D.

Unless you happen to be a photo geek like I am.  🙂