diff --git a/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslaterReader.cs b/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslaterReader.cs
index addd9a2..ee0dad9 100644
--- a/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslaterReader.cs
+++ b/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslaterReader.cs
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 using System;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using System.Linq;
+using System.Text;
 using FellowOakDicom;
 using MongoDB.Bson;
 
@@ -332,9 +333,10 @@ private static BsonValue CreateBsonValue(DicomDataset dataset, DicomItem item, b
         else if (!DicomTypeTranslater.SerializeBinaryData && DicomTypeTranslater.DicomVrBlacklist.Contains(item.ValueRepresentation))
             retVal = BsonNull.Value;
 
-        else if (element is DicomStringElement)
+        else if (element is DicomStringElement se)
         {
-            if (element is not DicomMultiStringElement && element.Length == 0)
+            se.TargetEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
+            if (se is not DicomMultiStringElement && se.Length == 0)
                 retVal = BsonNull.Value;
             else
                 retVal = (BsonString)dataset.GetString(element.Tag);
diff --git a/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslation.csproj b/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslation.csproj
index 4661134..2ddf9ee 100644
--- a/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslation.csproj
+++ b/DicomTypeTranslation/DicomTypeTranslation.csproj
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
     <None Include="Elevation\TagElevation.cd" />
   </ItemGroup>
   <ItemGroup>
-    <PackageReference Include="fo-dicom" Version="5.1.3" />
+    <PackageReference Include="fo-dicom" Version="5.1.4" />
     <PackageReference Include="HIC.FAnsiSql" Version="3.2.7" />
     <PackageReference Include="MongoDB.Driver" Version="3.0.0" />
     <PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="13.0.3" />