Look for an upcoming interview!

Well, this was kind of fun!  Thanks to my friend, Dr. Lorne Lavine, and his blog The Digital Dentist, I was recently contacted by Kathy Kincade, the Editor-in-Chief of an online dental trade magazine, DrBicuspid.com, about doing an interview on why the Canon T2i DSLR will be such a great dental camera.  Not exactly sure when the article will be published, but I'll provide a link to it once it comes out.

Also, we just finished a full-mouth reconstruction case a couple weeks ago and saw the patient for a 2-week post-op checkup, and I'll show some different ways to showcase pictures like this for print and the web.  I'll use that to lead into my overdue post on how to manage/understand patient expectations in aesthetic cases by using digital photography, because how you showcase your other work can be both a powerful marketing tool and communications tool to understand just what it is your next patient wants.

Canon announced the EOS Rebel T2i/550D | The Digital Photo Experience

2010/02/08 Canon announced the EOS Rebel T2i/550D | The Digital Photo Experience

Well........I guess I have to take back my recommendation for the Canon DSLR that I most recommend for dental offices, as Canon has just announced the release of it's newest, the EOS Rebel T2i (or the 550D, as it's known outside the USA). With many of the features of their newest semi-pro DSLR, the Canon 7D, this new camera is truly a perfect fit for dental offices.

Lightweight, an incredible 18 megapixel sensor (still 1.6x crop of course), with genuine 1080i HD video recording capability (and I can tell you that the HD video I capture with my 7D is simply superb) for recording patient live testimonials, you really can't go wrong. And with the features it has, this would be a fantastic camera to take on vacation, to family outings, kids' sporting events, etc. Paired with a Canon 60mm f/2.8 macro or a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and the Canon MR-14EX ring flash, as discussed in a previous blog entry about Canon DSLR set-ups for dental offices, and you are set.

Cosmetic Dentistry Slideshow from Lightroom 3 beta

In keeping with the topic of my last post, and which should lead nicely back to the subject of managing patient expectations, I'd just like to show a MP4 slideshow that I created directly in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 (beta), along with the steps necessary, so anyone can see just how easy this will be once the real version is released:

 5 Steps to Create the Slideshow with Lightroom 3 beta:

1. In the Library module, use CTRL + left mouseclick to select all the photos you want to include.
2. Change to the Slideshow module.
3. Pick one of the templates provided by default or create your own using the Layout options on the right side of the screen.
4. Simply go through the Layout options one-by-one (extremely self-explanatory), including selecting a music track from iTunes.
5. In the lower left, choose "Export Movie."  
6. Let 'er rip.  :-)

Seriously......that's it.  OK, it did take a little time just to choose the colors I wanted and to type in the text for the Intro and Concluding slides, but altogether, the slideshow that you see here (linked from my photography website, although it can be done through any number of services, such as YouTube) took me less than 4 minutes to create.  While I had done some previous editing to add borders and my watermark, once LR 3 is released, they will supposedly be including an easy set of features to add borders and watermarks very easily.

Here you go:

4 Lens "Positions" for Dental Pictures with the Canon 100mm macro

In dentistry, there will typically be 4 "types" of pictures that you will take, regardless of the purposes for which you take them.  They are:

1. The Full Face/Portrait
2. Full Smile/Retracted Smile or Full Arch
   
3. Quadrant
4. Single-tooth (not very often except for endo)

When shooting each of these, I have found that there are certain "positions" of the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens that approximate these consistently and easily.  Remember: DO NOT HAVE EITHER YOUR LENS OR CAMERA ON AUTO; BOTH SHOULD BE ON MANUAL AND MANUAL FOCUS.  To make it nice and easy, check out these pictures, then download the "Cheat Sheet" for use in your office.

For a FULL FACE/PORTRAIT, position the lens like this:




For a FULL/RETRACTED SMILE and FULL ARCH:



For a QUADRANT or 1:2 Picture:



For a SINGLE-TOOTH:



I'll soon have an equivalent set of pictures for the Canon 60mm f/2.8 macro lens, and eventually for Nikon and Sigma lenses.