Say Cheese! Pt 2 (Photography Reflection)

Hello all.

Apologies for my recent lack of posts, I FINALLY managed to get my blogspot account working again (something about needing to reset my Google Account??)

Anyway, since my last post, Luke, Jen Cao, Jasmina and I have had a few more sessions taking dental photographs on each other. Our photo-taking procedures have definitely improved in accuracy and efficiency since our first photography sessions in first semester. Working as a group we have become far more confident in our positioning of ourselves, the camera, the patient and any mirrors used. Furthermore, our knowledge of what camera settings and flash devices to use for each particular photo type has become second nature.

At one point a large percentage of the photos I was taking were coming out wrong (see below)

instead of













At first I thought it was an error with the exposure time (hence the burring) or that I was pressing the button wrong. Then we realised the flash was not functioning properly and we tracked down some more AA batteries for it. It worked fine after that. So if you guys get the same problem you know what to do!

The following are some techniques and lessons I have learnt to make taking photographs easier:

• Take the photos as a series of ‘bursts’. Take a small number of photos in quick succession. That way, if the patient blinks or moves momentarily, you should still have other usable photos without having to set up the shot all over again.
• Don’t forget to check the camera’s screen every now and then. Your last photo should pop up on the screen just after you take it. Take a quick look every now and then because the actual photo can sometimes look quite different to what you see in the viewfinder. This saves you from taking a stream of photos with a common flaw (such as a flash or exposure time error).
• Also, once you are finished taking photos of that type, use this time to check through them all on the camera to be sure you have at least one that is usable. That way if you need to take any more, you don’t have to set everything up again.
• When taking extra-oral shots, the amount of shadow can be altered by the relationship in distance and angulation between the flash, patient and the wall behind.

I used to find on occasion that the horizontal framing of the subject in the camera's viewfinder was different to that in the resulting photograph. I predict that this may have been due to the horizontal angulation of the camera at the time. This could have meant that I was looking through the viewfinder on a slight angle, and therefore seeing a different composition to the lens. If you have this problem, try looking through the viewfinder from a more square-on angle. You could also try taking a sweep of the shot, where you line up the camera and take a series of photos moving slightly horizontally (e.g. left to right) each time.

Finally, I can not overemphasise the importance of the recommended texts provided for us to read through. These texts give information on every aspect of dental photo taking, and most importantly, provide examples of ideal dental photographs to assess yourself against and strive to match.

Thanks. Hope this helps.

Nick