opinion on macro gear

[Lukey]

Yeah I mean for sentimental sake you'd get one of the old dental manual focus macro's for sure! .

One of the old Lester A Dine's fro example:

Man I love that little image on the lenses hehe.

I reckon for the OP's required setup he outlined a very good choice. The 60mm should be about the right size (ie, what happens if one of the practices is a bit small and you can't use the 100mm). The 500D seems to perform reasonably well with live view (albeit everything sucks with it currently), which would definately be useful. I doubt weather proofing would really be needed.

The ring flash is, imo, a must. Or something which will let you target the flash to produce a nice even exposure for the shots. Definately not onboard though, tends to be a bit shite in most instances. Just make sure the flash will work well in auto mode, as sometimes lens/flash combos over/under expose. Not too hard to change though anyways.

[quasar_999]

Lukey, that's a real funny shot above!

[Lukey]

Haha yeah, it's a real lens, a few other brands do them too (Komine iirc?).

They are really good macro lenses as well! One sold on Pentax forums not long ago for $350 or so. Pretty cool as it's not -only- a macro lens. Well, you can adjust the magnification easily anyways with the push/pull system.

[Andres]

I used to work for a prosthodontist about 5 years ago. He had a 450D, the twin head macro flash and the 100mm f2.8 (i think) macro prime.

He ended up just using a high-end point and shoot in the end.

a) The dslr setup was quite heavy, and camera shake becomes a bit of an issue with theong lens and weight. Boosting lgihting with the macro light oftens ends up with reflections of the (wet) teeth etc.
b) The dlsr setup was a bit too fiddly - people don't like spending lots of time in the chair waiting for someone to take the shot. And dentists time is $$$s.
c) Using point and shoot in macro mode with exposure adjustment works so well that why bother with naything else?

Seriously consider a high end P&S.

A dental surgery is generally pretty damn well lit, and a little bit of noise from a sligtly higher iso isn't going to impact on the end use of the image. If it was for taking photos for advertising purposes, then maybe stuff around with the dslr, primes and macro flashes. If its for actual day-to-day work for recoding purposes, I would go the P&S.

This is coming from someone who has 'been there, done that'. (And was the 'test subject' for about 100 test shots )

[Renza]

to keep it simple, why not get the MR14-EX macro flash ring, and pair it with a canon powershot G10?

that way its decently sized, not heavy, and fairly simple to operate.

[Alpha2k6]

Originally Posted by Andres

The dslr setup was quite heavy, and camera shake becomes a bit of an issue

Just responding to this part

Canon had their IS lenses (Image stabilization).
Nikon have VR lenses (Vibration Reduction).
Sony have SSS (Super Steady Shot) directly in the camera body.

[Renza]

Originally Posted by Alpha2k6

Just responding to this part

Canon had their IS lenses (Image stabilization).
Nikon have VR lenses (Vibration Reduction).
Sony have SSS (Super Steady Shot) directly in the camera body.

IS/VR lenses make it even heavier

[BAAZMAN]

And at the end of the day there is only so much IS/VR can do.

[woja]

Flash usually negates the camera shake problems anyway