A wall-mounted X-ray head is a fixed instrument, aligned by a stable arm and switched from behind a wall. A handheld unit puts the same tube in one gloved hand and asks the clinician to be both aimer and tripod. The device has become common...
A radiograph's contrast is built by the photons that are cleanly absorbed and the ones that pass straight through. The scattered photon belongs to neither, and it is the quiet vandal of the image - a fog with no source that dental imaging fights not...
A handheld X-ray unit is a beautiful piece of engineering, and it puts the source of the beam in the operator's own hand. The image it makes is identical to the wall-mounted tube's. The dose it delivers to the person holding it is not....