What The Inside Of A Cup Of Milk Looks Like, by Pepper

Original Link here. Reposted with permission from Pepper Lim.


On 22.10.12, I posted a question to the members of APOSL: If you filled a pail with milk and lowered a camera 3 inches into it and took a photo, what will the photo look like? White? Black? Purple? What? Explain your reasoning.

What if you lowered the camera 6 inches; would the photo be different?

This morning, I tried it out myself.

• Milk: made with milk powder, following the directions on the packet.
• Metal cup - so light cannot enter through the sides
• Camera phone wrapped in plastic bag (matte plastic. I didn’t have the clear type in my kitchen)

My tall cup with 4 cups of milk. Spectacles is there for size comparison. Very bright and hot morning. Plenty of light for taking photos.

Added a ruler. It is about 5 inches tall.

1st photo. 3 inches inside the cup. Phone camera wrapped in plastic (slightly matte). Was surprised that the colour was yellow!

2nd photo. Again, yellow! This confirms it, doesn’t it? The inside of a cup of milk is “yellow”. But wait….

3rd photo. There seems to be something I’ve done wrong while taking this photo. Rats! The camera flash! It was firing while inside the cup of milk!

4th photo. Turned off flash. And this is what the camera took.

5th photo. Looks like the inside of a cup of milk is dark.

6th photo. Yep, it looks dark. I guess no light can penetrate milk 3 inches from its surface.

So turns out milk is very effective at absorbing light. But you can test it out yourself! What happens if you took a picture a 2 inches? 1 inch? What if you tried coke? Orange juice?