Essentials of Dental Photography

Irfan Ahmad

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119312147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Dentistry

An accessible, one-stop guide to getting the most out of dental photography in clinical practice

Dental photography is an increasingly important part of dental care in general practices, hospitals, and specialist clinics. The uses of dental photographs are numerous, such as monitoring treatment outcomes, educating patients, promoting services, and providing evidence for litigation or regulatory purposes. Essentials of Dental Photography is a user-friendly guide to incorporating dental photographs into daily practice. Containing real-world advice and proven techniques, this book helps clinicians understand and apply the fundamental principles of dental photography.

Accessible chapters cover every major aspect of dental photography and answer the most common questions asked by clinicians. Step-by-step instructions show readers how to select the correct photographic and dental equipment, setup equipment for a variety of dental procedures, process images using photo-editing software, and more. The author, a recognised expert in the field, explain the basic concepts of dental photography and how to create high-quality, predictable and repeatable images. Providing an easy-to-follow roadmap to exceptional dental photographs, this practical guide:

• Covers all the basic concepts, equipment, and techniques of dental photography
• Illustrates the photographic setups for both intra- and extra-oral images
• Provides recommendations for appropriate types of cameras, lenses, flashes, reflectors, tripods, and software
• Discusses photographic archiving, electronic dissemination, printing, publishing, and presenting images

Essentials of Dental Photography is a valuable guide for dental practitioners and new graduates looking to learn dental photography and apply it in practice.

Section 1
Equipment and Concepts

1
Photographic Equipment

The most frequently asked questions about dental photography are:

‘Which equipment do I need?'

‘What is the cost?'

‘How long will it take to learn?'

The aim of this opening module is to provide answers to these questions.

Photography should be regarded as an integral part of daily clinical practice (Reddy et al. 2014), and photographic equipment as part of the dental armamentarium, no different to a dental handpiece. However, the common consensus is that a camera is an extraneous apparatus, exclusively reserved for specialists, or clinicians with a penchant for taking pictures. These are erroneous assumptions since photographic documenting is essential for diagnosis, treatment planning, treatment options, educating patients and ancillary staff, communicating with colleagues, recording treatment sequences, assessing and monitoring outcomes, marketing, and serves as irrefutable evidence if litigation ensues. Furthermore, it is important to emphasise that dental photography is not solely for specific treatments such as elective cosmetic procedures, but a requisite for recording pathological conditions of the oral mucosa or even the simplest treatment modalities such as tooth whitening.

The first thing to appreciate is that there are no ‘quick fixes' and no ‘deals', and fellow colleagues or companies who propagate these myths are misguided and misleading. A number of dental companies exploit photographic ignorance by offering ‘quick fixes', with low‐end cameras specifically adapted for dental photography, often sold at inflated prices for the gullible and uninitiated. However, most of these cameras are compromises, yielding inferior image quality, which is hopeless for precise diagnosis, treatment planning, follow‐up and communication. If the objective is simply to produce bland and boring pictures, similar to passport or ‘mug shots', then these devices fit the purpose. However, there is still a learning curve with these modified cameras, and it is questionable whether the toil is worthwhile for disappointing results. Alternately, the same time and effort can be channelled to learning correct techniques with appropriate equipment, which yield excellent and gratifying results.

Similar to learning a particular clinical technique such as crown preparation or implant surgical procedures, there is a learning curve for mastering dental photography that cannot be ignored. However, the time required to learn basic photographic techniques is reduced with proper advice and guidance. Taking pictures is probably easier than restoring a Class I cavity, but does require a degree of patience and perseverance. As mentioned in the Preface, once basic techniques are mastered in a few days (preferably combined with hands‐on or online training course),¹ a routine photographic session should take no more than 10 minutes of clinical time; a small sacrifice compared to the innumerable benefits if offers.

Cameras

Before choosing a camera and the accompanying accessories, it is crucial to establish the basic requirements of dental photography. Dental photography is essentially divided into two types of picture: portraiture and macrophotography. Portraits are necessary for several disciplines and clinical scenarios such as orthodontics, prosthodontics, aesthetic/cosmetic dentistry, facial enhancement procedures, external traumas to the dentition, or accidents involving soft tissue bruising, lacerations and fractures of the facial skeleton. Macrophotography encompasses both intra‐oral pictures of the oral environment consisting of the teeth and surrounding anatomy, and extra‐oral pictures of the dento‐facial composition and bench images of diagnostic casts or artificial prostheses/restorations. Therefore, it is essential to choose a camera and accessories that fulfil the requirements of both portraiture and macrophotography.

The market is awash with cameras offering countless functions, some superfluous, others essential, and deciphering which are useful or redundant is a challenging and annoying endeavour (Ahmad 2009a). Many camera features that are supposedly added to make life easier often end up as frustrating nuisances, and wading through never‐ending ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Section 1: Equipment and Concepts
• Section 2: Photographic Set‐ups
• Section 3: Processing Images
• Index
• End User License Agreement