Dental photography - camera - macro lens - flash ?

[paulg100]

if you are planning on using your camera for shade matching then dont skimp on the flash, the quality of light is just as important as the camera and the lens.

What is the temperature of the light of that flash? needs to be around 5400k to use for accurate shades.

Ive seen a similar unit recently and the light output was not very good/bright, as per the first review sais.

 

[Jorge]

As one of the Customers Reviews says led flashes (curent ones) have not enough power when you close the aperture to obtain depth of field.
Buy a traditional discharge flash.

 

[Ahmadkawi]

Elo,

I understand why people prefer a 105 lens, to avoid any loss of perspective. But I see people using 70mm's and doing fine. Moreover, where I work, we use a Sony 50mm Macro lens, and to be honest, I never noticed any loss of perspective. At least none that I could easily see.

Question, how about a micro-nikkor 85mm?

 

[Jorge]

For dental or any other macro photography, for the same magnification, longer lens allows longer working distance (from the front lens or hood to the subject),so it is less intrusive for the subject (and also allows better lighting but this is not the case here)

With longer working distance, perspective (relative size of foreground to background objets) is more natural.

Extreme example of bad perspective are portraits done with a fisheye or ultra wide lens,at very low distance to the subject nose is very big relative to the eyes and rest of the face.

 

[Ahmadkawi]

Yes, but is it really necessary to have a 105mm focal length? We use the 50mm with a twin flash, and it's ok really. I would go for longer though. It's true that having a 85 or 105 is best, if you also want to take portraits, because those record faces with no loss of perspective.

 

[adamb4321]

On digital cameras the sensor size has an effect on the focal length of lenses. Mostly when ideal focal lengths are discussed the reference point is 35mm film (or full size sensors).

Most sensors are smaller than the traditional 35mm film size by a factor of 1.6

This in effect means that a 50mm lens on a cropped sensor is comparable to an 80mm lens on a 35mm film camera. There are more digital slr's available now with full size sensor like the canon 1Ds etc, these would really require at least a 90mm lens for decent macro shots.

there's a good article here http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm

 

[Ahmadkawi]

Have in mind that the sensor crop factor affects field of view not the actual focal length of the lens.