Guidelines for imaging a subject’s hand
Photo Name: Hand
Subject Positioning: Photographer’s hand is positioned on a medium-flat piece of paper or cloth in blue, green, grey, or white. The photographer’s other hand is used to hold the camera while taking the picture.
Room Lighting: Use typical exam room lighting, such as overhead flourescent. Do not add lighting from other sources to improve the image quality.
Distance Camera to Subject: About 9 inches
Photographer Tips: One hand is being photographed and the other is being used to take the picture. Steady the camera by placing your elbow on the table and shoot the photo using one hand. Alternatively, you can use a tripod to steady the camera. Frame the hand so that all fingers, thumb and part of wrist are in the photograph. Focus on the knuckle (MCP joint) of the middle finger.
Reasoning: This captures a common size area of pathology.
Flash Settings: We suggest setting to “Auto”, as this is what most users would find easiest. Note if the camera flashes in this normal environment, and if so, does it appropriately illuminate the subject? How does this affect the color? You can also do comparison photos with Flash On (forced flash) and Flash Off.
Macro Settings: “On” or “Auto Macro”, if available. Most cameras work best in Macro at this distance.
Sample Images – Hand
This photograph of a hand was taken with two cameras set to similar settings under identical conditions, one taken after the other. When comparing photos, it is important that settings and conditions are documented for each image taken:
The Fuji camera flashed with the Auto Flash setting, but the HP camera did not. This is important information, as the typical user would probably just have the camera set to “Flash Auto”, and the result seen in the viewfinder would look “good enough” to the user. Note that without the flash, the color and detail ratings are low for Hand B.
In order to do a fair image comparison, we need to force the flash on the HP camera. Therefore, we repeated the HP photo with “Flash On.” This provides a comparison of the Fuji and HP cameras utilizing the flash. Notice that with the flash, the color changed on the HP photo, Hand C, but it is still not an accurate depiction. Notice that the flash did improve the detail score for Hand C. This similar comparison using the flash reveals that the Fuji camera took a more accurate photograph of the hand when compared to the HP camera.