A New Flash Gives Great Dental Portraits Super Fast & Easier Than Ever

In the early 1970's, when I "borrowed" my dad's Minolta FT QL (released in 1966) and decided at age 6 that I loved photography, I had no idea that my hobby would evolve into this. Sure, like every photo geek I had my own B & W darkroom where I would enlarge images, always finding a huge clump of dust somewhere on the enlargement. It was my version of "Where's Waldo" but I kept on going with it and never imagined that one day people would hire me to come and teach them how to get great dental images. I blame it on my dad (both a photo hobbyist and dentist) but even with all of the photo toys that he had, I don't think that we could have imagined the actual functionality of many of the innovations available to the average person today.

I remember the days of setting up a couple of light boxes or umbrellas along with the use of a light meter and an array of equipment to capture really nice portraits. Worse yet, you needed a decent ceiling height to get good images and a lot of room to set the equipment up for different "moods". We still can do that today, but for the average dentist who simply doesn't have the budget or room to create a true studio, I introduce the Stellar Diva 18 inch CFL ring light.

The 18" CFL bulb is bright but very cool and comfortable to be near.

What is it, you ask? It's a simplified way to take portraits. The concept is this: Set the light (less than $200) on a tripod or stable base, attach your camera on a flexible stalk (included) and you have perfect lighting. No softlights, no heat, no extra room (or budget) needed. Seriously. Just set it up, seat your subject in front and shoot.

Well, I took it over to a friend's office today to show it to him and we started shooting images. I chose to do things a little differently than they suggest and shot using an old Nikkor 70-300 lens from above , rather than attach the camera to the stalk. You don't need to do this, but I've always enjoyed thinking "outside the box", plus, I love the blurred background I can get using both a low f-stop and the zoom. I guess it's just my style.

Below are a few images and as anyone there can attest, once I set it up, it took literally less than 5 minutes to shoot all of the images you see below.  Are they as good as a $2000 setup with 3 lights? You be the judge, but remember, how good is good enough? With this system, I don't need extra room, it can be set up in the operatory in literally 1 minute and I'd feel fine putting these images up on my wall any day.

Remember, other than slight histogram adjustment and maybe a tiny bit of sharpening, there were no other changes to these images. There was no makeup or hairstyling and I just wanted to see what things would look like in an "average" setting. Scroll to the end of the 5th image and you'll see one more capability of this equipment...

Do you know how hard it is to make your 12 year old daughter smile for dental portraits?!?!?

So, using the light on an angle to the smile, I wanted to see what things could look like without diffusers or bounce. Just the ring light and an oblique angle. I had never tried this before, but the possibilities are endless.

This is just the ring light and my camera and nothing else. 

Just having fun with an "artsy" anterior shot, but it can do so, so much more.

Only one piece of equipment, for less than $200 to get great portraits and up close shots? I'll be using this a whole lot more...

The New Lytro Camera...Right for Clinical Photography?

When I got back from my Vegas lecture yesterday afternoon, a package was waiting for me.  About a year ago I put myself on the waiting list for the most anticipated camera to come along in a while. The new Lytro light field camera promised to be a new paradigm in photography. From the way it works to the concepts behind it, there was nothing like it.

The new Lytro may look small but it's a revolutionary approach to photography.

So, what makes it so great? Well, I can't really get into with this small of a space, but click HERE to learn more about the science behind it directly from the company.  In short, the goal of the camera is to allow the user to take a picture of virtually anything and be able to focus on any part of the picture, at any time, AFTER it has been taken. Basically, no matter what's in the picture, you don't focus, you don't use f-stops, you don't worry about flash settings. You merely pick it up, point it and shoot. Click HERE to see some sample images. Just click your mouse on any part and see it come into focus. There has never been anything like it. They are calling it "Living Photos".

I figured I'd take a look and see how it works and more importantly, see if it was good for dental use. After all, it's small, light, simple and I figured that if I could find a new way for dental photos to be taken, why not check it out?

Well, in my first trial, I wasn't impressed. The technology is awesome, but I just don't think it's there ...yet.  The image quality looked grainy and the lighting just wasn't good enough with the ambient room lighting. Remember, it doesn't use a flash.

This is just a first update. I promise to play with it this weekend and update you a but more some time soon...

My Clinical Photography DVD Was Reviewed in Dental Economics This Month

The only thing greater than making what you think is a great product is somebody using it and feeling the same way.

In this month's Dental Economics, Dr. Joe Blaes reviewed my "Exceptional Clinical Photography Made Easy" DVD. The DVD shows all of the techniques that I usually teach in my hands-on classes, using an "over the shoulder" approach. I cover patient positioning as well as mirror and retractor placement for ideal images, every time.

The DVD has been purchased by dentists in 14 countries and I'm humbled by all of your comments after you've used it, so thanks.

Below is the review. If any of you have ever watched it, I'd love your feedback. DVD #2 (a prequel ala George Lucas) will cover how to choose a camera, set it up and get perfect lighting for every image by understanding f-stops, flash settings and depth of field.

Why Great Depth of Field is Important in Dental Photography

Yeah, yeah, I know. Most dentists just want to pick up a camera, point it and get great images. So, if that's the case, then why all the fuss over depth of field?

Years ago, when we shot dental images on slide film, we were told to "focus on the laterals" so that we could get the centrals and cuspids in focus. With the advancement of technology, more specifically flash technology, we suddenly had a way to get a ton of lighting on an area, forcing us to turn the f-stop way up to give us great images.

But what's an f-stop and why does it matter?

f-stops, or apertures, are the adjustable components of the camera that allow light into the camera. The higher the number, the less light it lets into the camera. However, the higher the number, the greater the depth of field. A higher depth of field means that more is in focus from front to back. So, an f-stop of 32 will have much more in focus than an f-stop of 5.

For clinical photography, a higher depth of field means that for certain images we can worry less about having to focus perfectly and we will still get more in focus. For instance, for an anterior retracted image such as the one below, an f-stop of 25 will allow us to get every tooth, from central to 2nd molar in focus. Better yet, when shooting a high f-stop, it means that if you're off a bit in terms of your focus, you can get away with it because you have 2-3 inches of "depth" to play with.

With a higher f-stop, all teeth are easily in focus.

When one doesn't manage the f-stop properly, depth of field can be diminished.  Let's say you shot an image with an f-stop of 9, you will see a considerably diminished depth of field.

Notice how the posterior teeth are out of focus with this low f-stop image

So, the key is to be able to control your f-stop and always shoot with as high of an f-stop as possible for any given situation.  Sometimes, like for full face images, distance from subject requires all the flash power you can muster, as opposed to images such as a single central when there isn't a f-stop high enough to manage the amount of light thrown out by a full power flash, necessitating a lower flash power.

The need to alter flash power and f-stop settings are just two more reasons why I have felt that "point and shoot" cameras (which do not generally have either of the aforementioned features) are simply not appropriate for dental use.

There is one exception to the rule of great depth of field and it's portrait photography. When we take an image of a full face for non-clinical use, we do not want the background in focus, so it's important to manage lighting in such a way that the f-stop used is lower than for intraoral shots.

In portrait images, photographers use low f-stops to emphasize the face and make the background out of focus.

In the future, I'll cover more aspects of this topic including how to set your camera up to do this quickly and easily.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at Glenn@KriegerContinuum.com .

Best Wishes,

Glenn

iDVD as the Best Dental Marketing Tool Ever!!!

Like many dentists, I was a "PC Guy" for years. After all, my office software ran on a PC and it's just the way I was brought up. Then, one day at the mall about 5 years ago, I was walking past the Apple store and decided to stop in. I looked around and decided that I would try an experiment. I bought a cheap, bottom of the line Mac Mini and installed a virtual environment using VMWare ( I can explain this more to you if you're interested) and Windows XP. On that computer I installed the PC dental software so I could see how it could perform.

Well, it worked pretty well, with most of the shortcomings being due to the low computing power of the mini, not the overall nature of the Mac. However, having the mini allowed me to spend a lot of time playing with Mac apps. My favorite quickly became iDVD.

iDVD is ("was"-more on this below) an amazing piece of software that was originally designed to allow you to burn your movies to DVD, however, it was really very useful for marketing your practice. Imagine being able to make a professional movie that could play in your office, showing all of your cases with navigation using nothing more than a remote control.

iDVD allows one to create "chapters" of slideshows that one can see on the home screen. Like any DVD, what you burn allows a repeatable home screen like you might see on any commercial movie DVD. While this screen plays over and over, there are a variety of slideshows of your work that you can setup for one to choose. Best of all, when the shows start, music can play with them and the program will take the song you choose and make the number slides fit it perfectly. It's amazing!

Best of all, once it's burned to disk, all you need to show it is a TV with a  DVD built in. Right now, you could buy a 32" flatscreen TV with a built in DVD player for as little as $279. You can make a DVD in as little as 10 minutes and have a great way of showing off your work to everyone who comes into your office.

Below is an example of what you could make. Your patients could use the DVD remote control to pick which slideshow they want to see.

Here is an example of what the finished "Home Page" will look like while it plays on your computer in the reception area or consultation room.

All your viewer would need to do is pick which of the slideshows they would like to see.  What this blog cannot show you is how nice the screen looks on a TV. The box with the smile circles around and you can pick several picture to cycle. It also has music.

Now, imagine that for your finished cases you made a DVD to send to a patient's workplace along with a mug with your practice name and some mints/candies in it. The DVD could look something like this:

This is what a DVD to be sent to a patient can look like.

If you put nice pictures on the show, there's a pretty good chance that they'll throw it in their DVD player on their computer (can be Mac or PC or regular DVD player) and maybe show a coworker who could become a new patient...

Now, there are only three things that you need to keep in mind:

1. You must have good looking pictures to make this work well. If your images don't look great, it will be like showing a patient a filthy articulator covered in stone. At the least, you may want to consider buying our "Exceptional Clinical Photography DVD" found HERE.
2. For a few reasons, Apple stopped making iDVD this past year. Go and get a copy of iLife 11 and you'll be in great shape. That's where iDVD is found.
3. You must have a Mac to do this. Now, I love PCs as well, but there simply is NOT a program for PC that does what iDVD does as quickly and easily.

I hope this helps, and as always, you can email me with any questions or issues.

Take Care,
Glenn

The One Sentence That Makes All The Difference in Digital Case Presentation in Dentistry

A number of years ago, I had an amazing associate who worked with me. Talented, smart, funny and personable. A great diagnostician, this dentist was an overall excellent communicator. However, though every step in the digital case presentation workflow was followed, the new patients who saw this associate simply didn't schedule a lot of treatment. Worse yet, many of the patients came in for a new patient exam, never to return.

It was perplexing and a real "eye opener" for me. So, I investigated the system and tried to figure out exactly where the problem was. The images were gorgeous and the process worked of me, so why should there be a problem?

After interviewing some of the patients who never returned, I found out something very interesting.  They felt that the dentist was moral and just and that if a treatment plan was presented, it must be one that they felt very strongly about, so they would politely look for a second opinion, not wanting to offend the dentist or make them change their moral nature by "dumbing down" their proposed treatment plan.

Well, we learned from this and it was from that point on that I started every single case presentation with the same line that I teach attendees to my courses.  Before presenting any images or suggestions, I merely say "Now, remember, no matter what we discuss, I work for you, which means that if you don't like any of my suggestions, we're still friends and we can find another solution that does work for you."

The moment I started saying this to patients, you could see their tension disappear. Best of all, it was a natural extension of the entire Digital co-Diagnosis process, of which I am a strong advocate.

Start having this honest and fair discussion with your patients before presenting care and you should see amazing results.

Click here to see why everyone is raving about our "Exceptional Clinical Photography Made Easy" DVD and our revolutionary line of mirrors and retractors to capture the best images of your career.

Best Wishes,
Glenn

Please e-mail me at Glenn@KriegerContinuum.com

How To Properly Store Dental Images On Your Computer

Before I get into this topic, I wanted to remind everyone that you can get regular updates on this blog by clicking the "follow" button in the upper left. Best of all, you can do so anonymously, meaning that you'll get regular updates, but no spam or e-mails from us. It's just a great way to keep getting updates related to clinical photography and digital case presentation.

Now, onto the topic at hand...

At every one of my courses, the first question I am invariably asked is "Which camera should I get?" followed quickly by "How should I store my images?".  The first question I answered in my previous post found either below this post or in the archives from last month (on right side of screen). The second one I'll answer below.

Sorry ahead of time to all of my orthodontists who subscribe to this blog. You folks (and myself hopefully in 30 months) are tethered specifically to your image management programs due to specific needs related to how you practice. The information below, however, would be great for you to use for personal image management at home.

When thinking of storing images, what are some of the features of the software I want to use? Let's run through a few. Ideally, the software would be:

              Free
              Stable
              Easy to Navigate
              Regularly Updated
              Supported by Customer Service
              Proven
              Part of a Stable Company
              Compatible from User to User
              Searchable
              
One last feature, not to be overlooked, is the ability to pull your images out at will and move them somewhere else. Why?

Imagine that you've bees storing your images using dental software "X" for the last 8 years. It's worked OK for you, but you're kind of getting upset with the way company "X" isn't doing regular updates to their software, and common nuisances are not being corrected. You decide you want to switch to dental software company "Z", only to find out that you cannot batch all of your images over to the new software. What that means is that your thousands of images are now stuck in "X" and would have to be brought over to software "Z" image by image, patient by patient. At last check, there is no guarantee from any dental software company anywhere that they can bring over every image from your old software and place the images in the correct file in the new software. So, if you make the switch to brand "Z", you either need to keep a copy running in the background all of the time on a separate computer, or you have to hire someone to go through every record, one by one, to bring over every image. I call that being held hostage, and there are better options out there.

So, if you're looking for a way to save images for free, with free updates in an easy to use, supported environment that has been proven for decades, is part of a company that will not be going out of business and can be used by virtually anyone on the planet, consider....Microsoft Windows Explorer. It comes FREE on every PC computer and is just sitting there ready to use!!!

Ask any programmer who works for Microsoft about Explorer's ability to save images and files and folders and they will gently correct you and tell you that it isn't about files and folders but rather "database management".  That's exactly what we want!!! A way to manage our database of images.

Using Explorer, we can create folders that make sense, duplicate them for special purposes such as showing our implant or veneer cases. We can search them quickly and we can alphabetize. Best of all, we can have this database stored on a computer other than our server so that it doesn't slow down the server if several users are searching it at once. Simply have your IT person (or yourself) create an icon for that folder on the desktop of any computer in the office and you guessed it...one click and it will open up anywhere in the office.

By right clicking the "Start" button, and left clicking "windows explorer", you'll unlock open one of the best tools we have for database management in dentistry. Best of all, it's FREE!!!

You'll get free updates and it has millions of users, so there are articles of every type on the web that can answer almost any question you can have. It's REALLY easy to use and once you switch to it, you'll wonder why you ever stored your images on your dental software. Plus, you'll have that liberating feeling of knowing that you can change to any dental software company you want, and your images will never have to be touched. That, to me, is priceless, which is why I make teaching it a vital part of all of my 2 Day Master's Class.

Wanna learn, hands-on, how to set up and manage a database of images for dental use? It's a key component of our 2 day Master's Class, along with hands-on clinical photography, image editing and digital case presentation.  Click Here to learn more and let us help you master the technical things to help your practice grow, so you can focus on doing dentistry. You can use code "Blog10" to get 10% off of any of our products or classes.

I'm here whenever you need me, so please e-mail me at Glenn@KriegerContinuum.com, though I look at (and answer) every comment left on this site.