Nikon Coolpix 990 User manual

Quick Ceph®Systems
Doc ID# 1028Nikon_990_help - Revision 12-13-00
Nikon Coolpix 990 Help
http://www.q ickceph.com/docs/1028Nikon_990_help.pdf Page 1
The camera settings shown below offer a starting point for taking pict res with the Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera.
We enco rage yo to familiarize yo rself with the settings and sage of this camera.
Nikon has incl ded a help man al on the “Reference Man als CD-ROM”.
Turn the camera on by set-
ting it to the setting
located on top of the camera,
as shown to the right.
FINE mode with Anytime
Flash enabled.
Adjust image quality:
Click on the button on
the back of the camera until
the FINE option is displayed.
A
Recommended Settings for Extraoral Photographs
A
e suggest using either a wall mounted lightbox with a built-in slave flash or a bare slave flash
to eliminate shadow on the profile images. If you are using a bare slave flash, we have found that
it works best when placed precisely behind the patient’s head, facing toward a white background.
You may need to adjust the brightness on the background lighting that you use in order to generate
accurate soft tissue hues. Overhead fluorescent lighting may also affect the color of the images.
You can replace the fluorescent bulbs with Vita-Lite, or other natural lighting bulbs to produce
better color images. Professional photographers spend time setting up their studios for just the
right picture. e also have to invest time in setting up our offices for the right lighting for digital
images.
FINE
Yo r Control Panel
sho ld look like this.
Adjust flash settings:
Click on the flash button on the back of
the camera until the flash displays only the
symbol. This enables the Anytime Flash mode.
General settings:
To take intraoral images, the camera must be switched to the Macro Close-up
mode. To activate this mode, press the button until the icon appears in
the Control Panel and the LCD monitor. The Anytime lash mode should be
turned on as well.
TIP
We recommend
sing rechargeable
Nickel Metal Hydride
(NiMH) batteries with
this camera, as they
hold their charge
longer than reg lar
AA batteries.
23
2
1
4
Tips for Taking Extraoral Images
hen you are taking the lateral head image, make sure the patient’s head is level, with no tilting or
canting. e suggest that you place a mirror in front of the patient with a vertical line and have them
align themselves to it. This will reduce the amount of head tilting, making it easier to align the pho-
tos to the x-ray tracings. You should take the photo with the lens roughly along the patient’s
Frankfurt Horizontal plane to ensure the most accuracy.
For intraoral photographs, we recommend switching to the Manual mode on the camera. This allows you to take higher
quality pictures than in the auto mode, and allows for greater control over the exposure and depth of field of the images. The
manual settings only need to be set once, as the camera “memorizes” these settings.
To access the manual set-
tings, turn the camera on by
setting it to the setting
located on top of the camera.
M
1
Adjusting ISO film speed:
The ISO settings define how quickly the camera
takes the picture. A higher ISO number means the
camera will take the picture quickly, so there’s less
chance of blurry pictures. This is especially useful
for intraoral pictures.
To set the ISO settings, hold down the flash button
on the back of the camera and rotate the “Command
Dial” located at the top of the camera as shown:
The letters ISO should appear in the Control Panel.
You should stop rotating the dial when ISO 400
appears.
3Adjusting Aperture Priority:
For a better depth of field, you should adjust the Aperture settings. Setting the
camera on “Aperture Priority” allows you to adjust the camera so you can take
pictures where the foreground and the background are both sharp. This is crucial
for intraoral photographs.
To enable “Aperture Priority”, hold down the “Mode” button and rotate the
“Command Dial” located on the top of the camera until the icon appears:
Next, rotate the “Command Dial” all the way to the right until the you reach an F-
Stop of about 9.0, which appears in the control panel screen at the top of the cam-
era. You will need to use the Zoom buttons to fine tune the value.
The macro icon will then appear yellow on the LCD monitor.
4
Recommended Settings for Intraoral Photographs
B

Page 2
Quick Ceph®Systems
Doc ID# 1028Nikon_990_help - Revision 12-13-00
Nikon Coolpix 990 Help
http://www.q ickceph.com/docs/1028Nikon_990_help.pdf
Please Note: We only recommend this camera. We do not man fact re it. If yo have technical diffic lties, please contact Nikon S pport
at 1-800-645-6689.
Adj sting Images While in QCIPro and QC2000
C
Rotating Intraoral Images Inside QCIPro and QC2000
To flip mirror pictures within QCIPro and QC2000, use the lip tool located on the Tool Bar. Make
sure the intraoral images are displayed on-screen. Click on the lip tool and from the display box
that appears, choose the image that you would like to flip across the mirror plane.
If you’ve taken your right buccal pictures by turing your camera upside down, the image must then
be re-rotated 180º using the lip tool. To simulate a 180º rotation, the image must be flipped both
horizontally and vertically. First, flip the picture horizontally by clicking on the lip tool. To flip the
buccal picture vertically, hold down the “option” key before clicking on the lip tool.
The Rotate 90º tool is used to rotate extraoral images 90º in QC2000. Clicking on this tool rotates
the image clockwise. For counterclockwise rotation, hold down the “option” key and click on the 90º
tool. This tool is not available in QCIPro.
Adjusting the Metering:
Metering allows the camera to determine how much
light is necessary for illuminating a certain picture.
You should use Center-Weighted metering for intra-
oral pictures, as it allows you to preserve background
detail while providing the right amount of light output
for the teeth. To select this, click on the Menu button
on the back of the camera and use the Selector button
to navigate to the Metering option, as shown below.
hen Center- eighted is highlighted, push on the
right arrow of the Selector button to select.
5Adjust the Speedlight settings:
To eliminate overexposure for intraoral pictures,
you can adjust the flash output of Nikon’s
Speedlight. To do this, click on the Menu button
on the back of the camera, then select the icon.
Choose “Variable Power” as shown in the picture
below. e recommend using a setting of -1.3 for
intraorals. However, you may need to adjust this
value to fit the lighting in your office.
6
Selector B tton
After all of the adj st-
ments have been made,
the Control Panel at the
top of the camera sho ld
resemble the image
shown below.
Man al Mode with:
Macro setting
Anytime Flash
ISO 400 setting
Apert re Priority
Center Weighted Metering
Red ced Flash o tp t
Tips for Taking Intraoral Images
For intraoral images, we recommend taking pictures about 6 inches from the patient’s mouth. This
allows the flash to meter correctly without overexposing the picture. ith the camera’s high resolu-
tion, you will not lose clarity when cropping the images.
hen you are taking the buccal and frontal intraoral pictures, make sure to take the picture at a 90º
angle to the teeth. Also, try to align the horizontal plane of the camera with the patient’s occlusal
plane. This will save time, as you will not have to rotate the image inside Quick Ceph later.
NOTE: The flash is located on the left side of the camera. hen taking right side buccal pictures,
we recommend turning the camera upside down. This eliminates shadows and gives you images with
consistent exposure and color. The image can then be rotated inside Quick Ceph.
For occlusal pictures, we recommend framing the picture in the LCD monitor and leaving a left and
right margin. If the picture is taken too close, it may not fit within the cropping windows. e rec-
ommend using mirrors for the occlusal pictures.
TIP
If the occl sal pic-
t res appear too
dark, yo sho ld set
the camera to the A-
mode and t rn on
the Macro. This
adds more light to
the occl sal pict res.