I have been around the dental video business for multiple years and I have been lucky to see many dental treatments being recorded. This has given me a lot of experience in mounting cameras on many loupes, but also on fixed positions, such as chair lights, table clamps (our "gooseneck"), ceilings, walls and even TV screens. Because if there is one thing I have learned, is that one always needs to consider the way you connect  and angle a camera  before you start recording your dental video.

 

 

At Futudent we started out as a company focused on mounting a small, high quality camera on loupes or, alternatively, on a headband. Our philosophy was, and still is, that capturing your own point of view is the best way to share your procedures, be this for live lectures, educating your patients or for communicating with your colleagues. However, there is always one potential weak spot, and that is the head the camera is mounted on. No neck is stable enough to keep the camera as still as a statue and despite advances in technology, no software can take away the shaking that might occur on a small surface such as the mouth.

 

So now what? Ditch the head mounted camera and move to a light mounted camera? No, not at all! Also the camera mounted in a light has its issues, most of all that, again, that infamous head might come in the field of view. Oh my, what now? 

 

 

Well, it all comes down to planning and some common sense. For example, you are working with your patients, and you want to show them their own mouth? Definitely place the camera on your loupes as it gives the best view. It also gives you the opportunity to capture sudden, unexpected occurrences immediately when they appear. But are you planning to make a educational video for your students? Perhaps you might consider elements such as a) the amount of head movement that might occur, b) are you going to edit out possible movement and just keep the highlights and c) the length of the video. This can make the choice between mounting the camera on your head or on a stable surface, such as your chair light, already much clearer. Similarly, this goes for live lectures, where you want to avoid possible cases of sea-sickness with your audience. In that aspect we really like the set up by our friend at DTC Miami. During their implantology courses they use a simultaneous stream of two Futudent cameras: one mounted on the surgeon's loupes, the other mounted in the light. This way the audience can constantly enjoy, but also switch between, two points of view.

 

But now the question goes: "is changing between a chair light and loupes difficult?". My answer: absolutely not! Our new EduCam is designed from the start to be multi-mount: with a no-tools connection system and a removable cable, you can easily move the camera from one angle to another without trouble. Each Futudent package comes by default with both loupes connections and connections for your chair light. So all you have to do is consider what and why your want to record.