Dentist shooting teeth/mouth - best camera lens?

I had a dentist approach me about advice for a camera / lens to shoot mouths. He will have the patient's mouth held open by devices exposing their teeth and wants to make clear pictures of them. My first thought was a camera and macro lens but I am not sure that is necessary. His camera will be positioned approximately 12-18" from the subject. SLR with a macro lens is a lot of money. Wouldn't a Point n Shoot work? Thoughts and suggestions?

Can you provide me some ideas for him to consider?

I had this done last week.
They used a Nikon 90 with Macro and Sigma ringflash.
I told them the left tube was not firing - not a real ringflash.
No PS is good for this.
A Sony Mavigraph Fiber Optic is the best and more $$$.
This Sony system comes with many Dentist stations / chairs.
They just decided to use the DSLR on me.

MFD on the PnS cameras are lower than on SLRs unless you get a Macro lens. If he doesnt need the quality then theres no reason reason to get an SLR, expecially considering cost and bulk.

Dentists make enough money.

My dentist uses a macro lens with ringflash.

Rich people dont get rich by buying more than what they need.

They can afford it

Just put there prices up to pay for the kit

My daughter's orthodontist used a nikon d90 as well, with a ring flash, not sure what lens though

Not sure how advanced your dentists equipment is, but my dentist has a very small (toothbrush sized) micro-camera, that's linked to their computer, and a monitor mounted near by... This takes very close ups inside your mouth that also can see cavities/cracks on the tooth...Held farther way, you can also take images of the whole face.
Ron

You need to ask Julian, jwcdds, he sometimes posts pics of teeth, when he's not posting pics of his son.

DutchVince wrote in post #11840124
Dentists make enough money.

My dentist uses a macro lens with ringflash.

Same as my one

An EOS 1D something - can't see clearly as ring flash on my face

I'm a dentist....entry level rebel is fine with a good macro lens...ring flash is almost a must.

My wife does this for work. Yes, entry level rebel with Canon macro ring flash and Canon 100mm macro lens.

As a bio medical photographer I can say most definitely a macro lens, preferably in the 100mm range to get a good working distance and a ring flash. Body matters little as long as it will accept a good macro lens such as the Canon 100mm, Nikon has a 105mm.

Whippeticious wrote in post #11842976
You need to ask Julian, jwcdds, he sometimes posts pics of teeth, when he's not posting pics of his son.

:p

Yeah, as everyone else said already... it doesn't really matter what camera body you use. The photos are never blown up to be poster size so you don't really need anything more than 10mp (and that should be plenty for cropping). Old Rebels are fine.

The most important part is lens + ringflash. You'll want to dial up the aperture to get more DoF at times so the flash is important.

Most orthodontists have used DSLR+macro+ringflash to show the teeth of their patients before and after the job (braces) is done. However, general dentists they do not need this system since they use in mouth digital color camera (looks like the electric brush) to see the bad teeth specifically.