Not long ago, my wife and I took a road trip to Montreal from Toronto. I take highway driving "seriously" and was very focused on the road. It was a beautiful day and we drove along watching the scenery roll by in a blissful contemplative silence…or so I thought. When we hit Kingston my wife couldn't contain herself anymore, "What’s with you?! You haven’t said a word!". Clearly we had different expectations of my driverly duties.
I have had the opportunity to speak with many of the dermatologists participating in OTN’s TeledermSF program. Trust me, I’m not suggesting that any of the derms are in anyway approaching any kind of acrimony that I managed to achieve with my driving partner. The derms however, have provided some very helpful feedback that could enhance the referral/consultation exchange.
Over the course of the next few blog postings I’ll try to pass along some of the collected wisdom that has been derived from almost 2,000 TeledermSF users and over 7,500 consults provided by the dermatologists. Further down the blog road, I’ll give the referring users equal airtime and will provide useful feedback to the dermatologists.
At the risk of stating the obvious, photography is a key element of Otn.teledermSF. The referring user essentially becomes the eyes of the dermatologist.
At the risk of stating the obvious, photography is a key element of Otn.teledermSF. The referring user essentially becomes the eyes of the dermatologist (the ears and nose too but I’ll cover that in another blog posting). A clear, sharp photograph is essential for the dermatologists to provide an accurate diagnosis.
One thing that can "fool" someone who is not that familiar with photography is the view you see of your photo using the camera’s LCD screen. It may appear that the photo you just took is sharp but it would be wise to do a simple test. Let’s look at these two examples.
Here are two pictures of my hand. I have intentionally introduced some "camera shake" into photo B but at this size (roughly the size of the LCD screen on the camera) the pictures look comparable.
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| Photo A | Photo B |
Now let’s zoom in and look at the identical area for each photo.
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| Zoom A | Zoom B |
Wow! What a difference! These photos are of the exact same area of my hand but look at the difference in the detail. You can clearly see the skin creases and tiny hairs in Zoom A but they are barely distinguishable in Zoom B. The difference between the two photos is that I steadied the camera in Photo A by resting my elbows on the table. By minimizing the camera movement I get a much sharper photo.
To check the quality and sharpness of your photo try this simple test. Simply zoom into any area of the photo with the W-T toggle that is attached to the shutter release button (the red arrow is pointing to it):
While you are in the playback mode and can see your photo on the LCD screen, push the toggle toward the "T" and this will zoom into the photo. Push the toggle toward the "W" and you will zoom back out. Try it! (If you happen to push the toggle all the way to the "W" side you may see tiny individual photos. Don’t worry, just push the toggle once towards the "T" and the photo view you’re used to seeing will reappear.
Taking the time to ensure you send sharp photos to the dermatologist will make for a much more enjoyable drive for everyone. ;-)
Cheers!
Stewart
