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big little book printing

One of the advantages of a having a good camera is wide dynamic range. To quote Snapsort, 'Cameras with more dynamic range can capture more variation in tone from light to dark'.

Dxomark specifically compares cameras on their capability in this area. The top cameras manage fouteen stops but even a £50 cheapo camera from Argos would manage nine or ten - and the photos would look great.

The prints I've been making from my camera, on plain white office paper with unbranded eBay inks, have seen the dynamic range crumple to probably less than half that, maybe four or five stops at most -  it's tricky to take a photo of what they look like; muted with dim shadows, washy highlights and just a couple of flattish shades in between, with much of the 80gm paper rippling from being soaked by too much ink.  It's surprising to find that despite everything the colours still look fairly decent and there's modest levels of detail.