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

to crop or not to crop....

hey guys
the criteria for the cinical photography assignment states we are not to submit edited pics - does this include flipping the lateral views taken in the mirror??
are we allowed to crop the pics to remove the outer edges??
i agree with u Acacsia - i had Dr Lew the dentist on board on fri help me take pics on my pt, very time consuming (A LOT longer than 10 mins!) and the pt found them quite uncomfortable as only 4 weeks ago her jaw was dislocated from having 4 x exos of her 8's... how's my timing!!
if anyone knows about the cropping let me know
xx Amy

Patient photo's

Hi all,

I finally took my photo's on a patient, and it was hard. My tutors told us (and Nick will be able to back me up on this) we had 10 minutes to take the entire series. Thats probably fine if you have a lot of experience, but I took the other photos on class mates back in the first term holidays! So I was rusty. I felt really pressured to take all the photos so I just rushed through them, I didn't even review them to see if the were OK. My strategy was to just take 2 or 3 one after the other with slight adjustments and hope for the best! I still haven't seen the the photos...

Did anyone else feel like this? I know its uncomfortable and the patient doesn't want to be sitting there for a whole hour, thats not fair. I just would have like a little more time...

Maybe I should have practice some more on students before I went to the patient.

Acacsia      

Say Cheese!

Hi all.
Luke, Jasmina, Jen and I took some extra-oral photographs of eachother last Friday for the assignment, so I though I should add a little self assessment here.

• We used the conference room at Somerton Park and used the projecting screen as the backdrop. The level of space and ambient light was good for making quality photographs and I recommend this space to others if it is available to them.
• I realised on the day that another important operator skill could be the ability to make people smile/laugh. Smile photographs appear much more natural when the patient is smiling comfortably. I guess they would also be more likely to be in their normal occlusion too.
• It might just be my cack-handedness but I found that on some occasions the framing of the subject in the camera's viewfinder was diferrent to that in the resulting photograph. I found that some photos I thought would turn out well ended up positioned too far left or right. Some other people experienced this problem too. I guess we just need to observe our photos on the camera's screen and adjust our aim accordingly, even if the viewfinder says we are cutting off part of the shot.

Thanks guys and see you on Monday!

Nick

Smile!

On Friday 9th May a couple colleagues and myself were fortunate enough to have an opportunity to take some intra and extra oral photos of each other. From this experience I have a couple of hints you may or may not wish to consider when you take some pics.

1/ Dont forget that extra oral pics are taken with the camera rotated 90 degrees. The result being much more appealing pictures having less wasted space surrounding the person.

2/ When exposing pics, I found taking 3 - 5 pics sequentially (reasonably quickly one after the other of the same view) a very good strategy. This usually ensured that one of the pics was of an ideal quality and executed with minimal time wastage (taking one photo, having a look, realising it was not ideal, and then refocusing and retaking can be alot more time consuming and uncomfortable for the pt). Besides, there is ample room on your memory card and the unusable photos can be deleted later.

3/ No i think that was it! I hope my hints may somewhat help. So on that note, good luck and have fun!

Photography assignment

Hey guys,

Im doing the photography assignment and am having trouble finding references. I dont know how many people are doing the assignment, but any helpful websites or books/mags would be great. 

Cheers

Acacsia 

Hi Guys
Just letting everyone know we have book a table at Glenelg Fasta Pasta on Jetty Rd for tomorrow lunchtime! This would be a great chance for everyone to catch up after general studies and before clinic! The manager there has promised discount if enough of us go! he is going to throw in some free garlic breads as well!!! Hope you can make it!!!