aghhh, I lost all what I was writing for posting offline, gghhh.. anyway, here's the render where I solved the issue... it was the highlights!! I turned them down to 0%... sorry, but I had typed a lot more and now got a little frustrated... the teeth are there, but i had to use a spot light on them to make them visible... is there a better way to do this? thanks for all your help! I'll keep playing with the focal lenght... but, what is better, to put the camera really close to the character with no close-up, or putting the camera really far away and then zoom in?? I use the latter method, this pic was at 365mm. thanks again