Dental photography

[JonB]

***snip***
As far as learning, nothing is better than just taking ALOT of pics and adjusting your settings till you get it down.
Trial and err.
Its free (except for your time).

No truer words were ever spoken! Couldn't say that in the film days but digits are free! Shoot with reckless abandon!

 

[NicelyMKV]

Ah ha! I purchased a wireless twin flash. No settings available. That is the problem. It is just wide open every time. Need to get the Canon. I am bad about trying to sprint before I know how to crawl. I am taking hundreds of photos a day and getting really good results. Just not with the one thing I want the most, crowns..... Thanks again for all of your help. Al, when I grow up I want to do crown work like you.

Jason

 

[Al.]

Thanks, but dont cut yourself short, the crowns you posted are beautiful.

The flash Jon posted is the one I have along with a Sigma ring flash.
I think It cost me around $700.

Its expensive stuff but its been the best and cheapest marketing tool for me.
You can get some really top Drs to give you a try with photography.
Also Drs that lecture, or aspire to, really perk up when they see pics of lab work.

Pics of ceramic crowns are the toughest.

Take pics of alot of other steps.

Here are a couple of pics from a case I photodocumented for a Dr that wants to incorperate some lab steps into his implant lectures.

 

[NicelyMKV]

Thanks Al. That means a lot from a tech like yourself but I think my crowns look descent due to my inexperience with macro photography lol! Looking to get an wye opener when my 100mm macro lens arrives I am hoping to use that typenof magnification to really see my mistakes and hopefully have the skill to improve.

JonB, I thought you mentioned using lightroom. You may find this interesting.
Photosmith: Useful iPad companion for Lightroom | Deep Tech - CNET News

 

[NicelyMKV]

Just ran across a pretty good resource.

Dental Kits (Cameras)

 

[Alistar]

Ok....just ordered Canon Macro EF 100 mm 2.8! Be here May 2nd. Will bug you guys again after it arrives

Jason

Nice man, you'll like it.

I've been waiting and waiting for a used Canon twin flash to pop-up on Ebay. And my prayers were finaly answered last week. Won it on Ebay for $660 on Resurection Sunday. :amen:

I've got big plans for this set-up. I'm going to start documenting a lot of my work, put it on CD's, and have my wife deliver them to dentists around town.

 

[JonB]

Whew - I'm beat! Went to see a dr in another town today. Was going to do a headshot of the new assistant for their web page -but they were slammed with work and couldn't do it. Of course they had a patient that needed me to check the shade and of course I had 30 grand worth of camera gear in the car and didn't have the camera with the macro lens or the ring or twin flashes!
... so I improvised... I had the 1D Mark IV with a 24-105 on it, set to about 80mm or so. I used a 580 in the shoe mount, pointed up and bounced it off the ceiling about 5 feet away - which worked OK for nice even lighting but not as good as a real ring flash. So the dr went and got a Sigma ring flash that is used on the office Nikon D80. A little worried it wouldn't talk to my Mark IV correctly, I put it on and fired a shot. WOW - overblown! No TTL communication just full on full power. So I rolled the shutter up to 1/250th and the aperture around to ƒ22 and viola! It worked!

Got lucky this time - but i learned to always take everything i might need to a dental office... something along the lines of bringing a knife to a gunfight!!!

**** edited with photos for example ****

Here is the sequence...

Bounced the 580 flash off the ceiling 5 feet up and 5 feet back - makes a big softbox sorta light.

Not too bad!
Settings were ƒ8, S 1/100, ISO 100, focal length was actually 105mm. (Ansel Adams - "ƒ8 and be there!")

Same settings on the camera but with the Sigma ring light... first time it did not fire at all


Same settings but this time the Sigma fired... and fired and fired...


So I quickly dialed it all back as best i could on the fly to:
ƒ22, S 1/200, ISO 100 and the focal length still at 105mm
and got this:
which in photoshop is about 1/3 over exposed still.

All of that to say, it would have been much easier and much more reliable to use the tools best suited for the job - intra oral photography. .. and while yes, you can make something else work, the results aren't going to be as satisfactory as if you had just gone ahead and spent a few extra dollars and got the right thing to begin with. (or brought it with you in the first place)

I looked at the bag with the macro camera rig before i left yesterday morning and said to myself "am i gonna need that too?" and said "naw" and headed out the door... only to find out i did!

 

[Alistar]

Haha, Jon you're funny man. You sure get excited about photo hurdles.

Good job on making that work. I think you salvaged something usable.

 

[Alistar]

Finaly getting my dual flash dialed in. Went to manual and dialed it into 1/4 power, because ETTL was blowing everything out.

This is after about 100 shots or more to get it to this.

Shutter 1/80, f/22 or 25, iso100






Sorry, I could not get this one to resize for the life of me...

 

[JonB]

Very nice work! Looks like you've got it dialed in well but I'm baffled at why you're having to jump through so many hurdles (manual at 1/4 power and manual camera settings)
Would you do me a favor? Set the flash back to full power and on ETTL, then set the camera on aperture (AV) priority with an ƒ22 setting and the ISO to 200. Take a similar pict to what you just posted and post it here. That way I can see what you are seeing and all of the settings are what I would be used to shooting with. Thanks - I can't wait to see the results.
I typically shoot at that setting and its not unusual to boost the power by 1/3 on the flash with ETTL. So I'm wondering what is going on and why we're getting such different results.

 

[NicelyMKV]

Looking good Alistar! I am following your trial and error. Will have a similar setup to yours in the end. Crown looks great by the way.

I know this is a photo thread and will move to a new one if needed but is that VMK master? I can get a ton of color and trans with inline but my VMK stuff is just slightly dead.

Jason

 

[Alistar]

Jon, I had to got to manual, because when I set to Av f/22 ISO200 my shudder speed goes down to anywhere between 10-30sec. That's why I was using a tripod with my first set of pics. I don't know why it does this on Av. *shrug*

I'll get that Av f/22 ETTL shot up on Monday. I'm with my wife and our one month old right now, and I left the twin flash at home. I also promised my wife I wouldn't do any work today, and you know how it goes when you make a promise to your wife!(she is seeing me do this right now and I'm getting guf for it) lol

Thanks Jason! I've bumped up my high temp to 1730 and lowered my heat rate to 90 for my VMK. I also do a long dry and preheat. 5min dry/4min preheat. I use the T4/OT1 mix for a lively translucent look up in the insical. Opal Translucent 1 is really intense, so I cut it with T4. Mix is about 3/4 T4, 1/4 OT1. This was my porc set up.

GOTTA GO! WIFE IS GOING TO BEAT ME!

 

[Hal2a]

Alistar, what do you use for the black back ground? Looks great !!

 

[Alistar]

Alistar, what do you use for the black back ground? Looks great !!

Black felt cloth.

 

[NicelyMKV]

Last photo posted using kit 18 55 lens

 

[JonB]

Jon, I had to got to manual, because when I set to Av f/22 ISO200 my shudder speed goes down to anywhere between 10-30sec. That's why I was using a tripod with my first set of pics. I don't know why it does this on Av. *shrug*
****snip****
GOTTA GO! WIFE IS GOING TO BEAT ME!

I hear ya - my wife just looks at me and shrugs and shakes her head. Try spending a quiet evening at home together watching a movie... with a laptop, two portable hard drives and 3 or 4 32 gig compact flash cards to download and edit!

There must be something wrong with your camera or the way it is set up in the custom functions or something. It definitely isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing. Its as if it isn't recognizing the flash is there if the shutter is going that slow. It thinks there isn't a flash attached and its setting the shutter for the available light. You probably better have both the camera and the flash checked.
In the meantime, tell me exactly what model it is and I'd look around in the custom functions menu to see if there is something going on there.

 

[Alistar]

Jon, that's a good idea. I'll search some photog forums to see if other people are having the same issue.

But when I check the "info" on the pic it says "Flash Type/External E-TTL" and "E-TTL II flash metering/Evaluative flash metering", so i think it's detecting the flash and that it is set on ETTL.

Well here is a pic of Av setting, f/22, and ETTL on my flash.





Dude, my wife would not be happy with all those noisy Ex-HD's setup and all that editing going on during movie night. You're really pushing the limits.

 

[Alistar]

Last photo posted using kit 18 55 lens

Nice, you get it dialed in yet???

 

[johngimpelcdt]

There must be something wrong with your camera or the way it is set up in the custom functions or something. It definitely isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing. Its as if it isn't recognizing the flash is there if the shutter is going that slow. It thinks there isn't a flash attached and its setting the shutter for the available light. You probably better have both the camera and the flash checked.
In the meantime, tell me exactly what model it is and I'd look around in the custom functions menu to see if there is something going on there.

I get that too with my Canon EOS Rebel XT, Speedlite 430EX flash and Sigma 105mm 1:2.8 DG (EX Sigma) Macro lens.

 

[JonB]

I have zero experience with Rebels other than way back when i bought my 10D and went to a dental photography course, they had others there with them. They told those shooters to set their cameras up just like those of us with 10Ds - so I know there must be something missing - some setting or custom function, because the camera should set the shutter to whatever shutter speed is necessary to get a properly exposed image using the flash. Instead it is setting the shutter as if there isn't one there and then the flash is over exposing.
Are either of you on the POTN (Photographers On The Net) web forum? Canon Digital Photography Forums - Powered by vBulletinThat is Canon's huge photography forum and they will have covered this issue. For Nikon shooters there is Nikonians.com.

I will ask around over there and a few other sources and I have a dentist that shoots with a Rebel and a Canon ring flash - I'll check his settings and see if he's had any issues.

Allistar - would you mind to send me that image through email as attachment? I'd like to look at the exif data. Or if you know how to get the exif, post it here.
If you use Photoshop you can get it under the "File" Menu with the "File Info" option.