Cyber-shot, a Handy Digital Camera for Maxillofacial Surgery

Toshihiro Okamoto, DDS, PhD Tomohiro Ando, DDS, PhD Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Tokyo Women’s Medical University, School of Medicine Shinjuku-ku Tokyo, Japan Sir: C and surgical photographs are valuable for maxillofacial surgeons. Photographs can help surgeons to review novel procedures performed and can be used to teach students and residents and prepare manuscripts. Taking photographs of the oral cavity requires specialized techniques, because the oral cavity is a narrow, deep, dark space. A conventional single-lens reflex camera with a ring flash can be used to take these photographs, but such cameras are large, heavy, and expensive. A conventional compact digital camera is light and affordable but does not have a suitable focusing distance for taking photographs of the oral cavity. We started using compact digital cameras from the Cyber-shot DSC-T30 and TX series (Sony, Tokyo, Japan) to take clinical, surgical, and experimental photographs in 2008.1–5 We currently use the Cybershot DSC-TX30 (96.4 × 59.3 × 15.4 mm, 140 g, 18.2 megapixels, price approximately USD250; Sony) (Fig. 1). This camera is waterproof and shockproof and has passed a drop test from a height of 1.5 m. The camera is used with an exposure value of +0.7 and fill-in flash, and the operating lights turned off. To take photographs during surgical procedures, the surgeon holds the camera in one hand, which is covered by an extra sterile glove over the surgical glove and exposes the operative field with the other hand using a retractor (Fig. 2). The camera automatically focuses on the surgical site. The Cyber-shot DSC-TX30 includes an LED ring flash, which is not useful for taking photographs of the oral cavity, but it is useful for taking photographs of surgical specimens from as little as 10 mm away, without causing shadows. No another settings are