Milk Meets Coffee

January 29, 2007 10:28 AM

Drops of milk splashing into coffee. The beauty of high shutter speed photography.
posted by jonson (53 comments total)

Those are awesome.
posted by ColdChef at 10:34 AM on January 29, 2007

Wow, very cool!... The pictures, and the sense of movement they capture, are almost erotic... I'll never look at my coffee the same way again.
posted by amyms at 10:34 AM on January 29, 2007

Wow.

Almost organic, fungal, alien.
posted by darkstar at 10:34 AM on January 29, 2007

Neat!
posted by brundlefly at 10:35 AM on January 29, 2007

mmmm... CoffeePr0n.

(Not complaining)
posted by hal9k at 10:39 AM on January 29, 2007

/me resists urge to replicate with tea, just cuz
posted by Skorgu at 10:39 AM on January 29, 2007

Penises. Nothing but penises.

What? What do mean 'that says a lot about where your mind is?'
posted by koeselitz at 10:40 AM on January 29, 2007

Milk in coffee is an abomination and an affront to god (excepting cappucino) but these are freakin awesome.

My favorite application of the new high speed film/photography is in sports. I was watching a boxing match on HD TV yesterday and they had the high speed camera catch Oscar Diaz nail Golden Johnson square in the face...watching the impact throw all the loose meat and skin to the back of Johnson's skull was both a horrifying study in the brutality of the sport and an absolutely riveting visual.
posted by spicynuts at 10:41 AM on January 29, 2007

Lovely. See also: Martin Waugh.
posted by gwint at 10:42 AM on January 29, 2007

I AM DRINKING COFFEE RIGHT NOW HOLY FUCK MY GOD THERE ARE STARS
posted by Mister_A at 10:44 AM on January 29, 2007 [4 favorites]

Wonder if that photographer down-post ever tried this. He could call it

Letchik Leha Leché.
posted by hal9k at 10:45 AM on January 29, 2007

I like mine black and sweet.
posted by Mister_A at 10:46 AM on January 29, 2007

That was a shocking visual, spicynuts.

Great pictures. I'd only seen this sort of thing as little crowns, not these little mushroom umbrellas.
posted by ibmcginty at 10:46 AM on January 29, 2007

Almost organic, fungal, alien.

Indeed, I totally flashed back to this clip from David Attenborough.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:46 AM on January 29, 2007

Does anyone know if these were done with a super fast shutter speed, a high speed flash, or in some other way?
posted by sindark at 10:59 AM on January 29, 2007

Another outstanding post from jonson. News at 11.
posted by Kwine at 11:00 AM on January 29, 2007

Ah, coffee, the most inter-racial of hot beverages.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:02 AM on January 29, 2007

Dammit, I don't have a tripod or a medicine dropper or I really would replicate this (badly) with tea. If you have a camera with manual shutter speeds these shots are surprisingly easy to take. Getting them to look good like the ones in the link, on the other hand, takes lots of patience.
posted by Skorgu at 11:05 AM on January 29, 2007

sindark I did a quick proof-of-concept with my mug in my office using only daylight and a halogen desk lamp, ISO 1600, 3200 shutter speed, wide open fstop (3.5) and the wrong (28-135 IS) lens. Certainly do-able with any halfway decent DSLR.
posted by Skorgu at 11:08 AM on January 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is really cool. I can't get over the symmetry.
posted by veggieboy at 11:12 AM on January 29, 2007

Indeed, I totally flashed back to this clip from David Attenborough.

I was watching that with the sound off and didn't get what was so fungal and weird about it until the time lapse kicked in. Gah!

These images are beautiful. There's a collage project waiting to happen using these mushroom/umbrella/cock/whatever shapes in place of the "real" thing.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:13 AM on January 29, 2007

Need coffee now. Not mushrooms or cock. Coffee.
posted by imperium at 11:17 AM on January 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

sindark: "Does anyone know if these were done with a super fast shutter speed, a high speed flash, or in some other way?"

I just pulled down one of the files and checked to see if the EXIF data was still intact. Sure enough it was. She used a Nikon D50 with a 135mm lens. Shutter speed 1/499, f-stop f/16. Weirdly enough, the ISO speed tag doesn't seem to be in there, but I happen to know that the D50 can't go any faster than 1600.
posted by Plutor at 11:20 AM on January 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

(Yes, 1/499. That's what EXIF tells me. Of course, all of the EXIF data could have been faked, but that seems a bit extreme.)
posted by Plutor at 11:21 AM on January 29, 2007

That's really, really cool. Thanks jonson.
posted by dios at 11:22 AM on January 29, 2007

One question: what is the name for that pattern? It is so beautifully symmetrical with the circle shape and the alternating small and longer flares.
posted by dios at 11:24 AM on January 29, 2007

Very nice. I never get tired of the high-speed photography of liquids, like this.
posted by OmieWise at 11:26 AM on January 29, 2007

while i can certainly undertand the artist not wanting to offer hi-res versions for free on his website, i don't know who he's trying to fool calling the 600px size images "original." everybody knows you're rocking 8 megapixels dude. nice stuff.
posted by radiosig at 11:34 AM on January 29, 2007

Suddenly I've a hankering to listen to Faith No More
posted by adamms222 at 11:59 AM on January 29, 2007

Where can I buy some? I like these, and that her username at pbase is daria90, and these pictures of some very feminine smoke, and these colourful splashes, and these circles. Great stuff, thanks.
posted by goo at 12:08 PM on January 29, 2007

Anyone else fighting the urge to sing the theme to 3-2-1 Contact?
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:19 PM on January 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Does anyone understand the process governing the splash's transition from film to droplets? I'm guessing it has to do with surface tension and the thickness of the film, but viscosity and inertia could play a role too. Anyone?
/must understand universe
posted by Popular Ethics at 12:21 PM on January 29, 2007

MetaFilter: That was a shocking visual.
posted by ORthey at 12:27 PM on January 29, 2007

...i don't know who he's trying to fool calling the 600px size images "original." everybody knows you're rocking 8 megapixels dude. nice stuff. (posted by radiosig)

The D50 is 6mp (3008x2000 afaik). I have one. I have a cup. Hmm.

bbl
posted by flippant at 12:28 PM on January 29, 2007

So much awesome. Thanks jonson.
posted by Shutter at 12:39 PM on January 29, 2007

Cool.

As a test, I shot a couple of photographs really fast of water from the faucet hitting the sink.

Shot at f/7.1, 500 shutter (max when you use the built-in flash) at ISO1600 with a 50mm/f1.8. It isn't nearly as nice as the linked ones, but goes to show that it can be done fast ;)

In the sink (900x450)
posted by flippant at 12:45 PM on January 29, 2007

Goddamn. Google has found fifteen academic articles discussing splashes, but when I get to the sites, they're all locked behind paywalls. This is academic freedom!?
/end off-topic rant.
posted by Popular Ethics at 12:48 PM on January 29, 2007

now i know what a diaphragm must feel like.
posted by phaedon at 12:59 PM on January 29, 2007

These are really beautiful.
Here's a question: in the images where I can get a clear count, there always seems to be the same number (~23) of tendrils or droplets or whatever radiating from the drop. The same appears to be true in the colored water splashed that goo linked to.
Can anyone point me to a good explanation for this? Or should I just leave well enough alone, and pay more attention to the pretty?
posted by Hadroed at 1:00 PM on January 29, 2007

I support slow motion photography in whatever forms it takes.
posted by boo_radley at 1:11 PM on January 29, 2007

I had some dreams,
They were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee
posted by spock at 1:13 PM on January 29, 2007

The man who started it all - Doc Edgerton.

"Not only did Doc Edgerton change the course of photographic history with the invention of the electric flash, he produced some of the medium's most iconic images - eerily beautiful pictures of a fast-moving world stopped in its tracks. The MIT professor's work perfectly straddled the worlds of art and science: who else could claim inclusion in both the New York MOMA's first ever photography exhibition in 1937 and the US Patents Office's National Inventor's Hall of Fame?"

posted by ericb at 1:26 PM on January 29, 2007

These are amazing. I wish I could print them out and take them to work! (Perhaps I will find a way...)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:31 PM on January 29, 2007

Hadroed: Can anyone point me to a good explanation for this? Or should I just leave well enough alone, and pay more attention to the pretty?

That is interesting, and one of the locked-up papers I was Googling mentioned the number of droplets as a parameter in their experiments. They mentioned Reynolds number, and Weber number, but I can't find out exactly how it all plays out because Academia doesn't seem to want to share the information. Report back if you find out!
posted by Popular Ethics at 1:39 PM on January 29, 2007

So pretty! I knew I took cream in my coffee for a reason: to promulgate art and beauty!
posted by onlyconnect at 1:51 PM on January 29, 2007

Right on, spicynuts. If God had wanted milk in our coffee, he would've made coffee come from cows.

(excepting well-made espresso-based drinks, for which I believe we have a special dispensation)
posted by elvolio at 1:58 PM on January 29, 2007

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who looked at the linked photos and immediately grabbed my camera trying to duplicate them.

My results were not noteworthy, but acceptable enough to believe that given some (read as: a lot) more practice, I could make something nifty as well. I love it when people find art in the most mundane of places.
posted by quin at 4:11 PM on January 29, 2007

A song started playing in my head as soon as the page loaded. It began like this:

"Badger badger badger badger..."
posted by Anything at 4:47 PM on January 29, 2007

Steuben glass Splash bowls.
posted by jjj606 at 7:11 PM on January 29, 2007

/must understand universe

aw, dude, leave that tag open!
posted by dreamsign at 8:20 PM on January 29, 2007

Groovy.
posted by hadjiboy at 8:36 PM on January 29, 2007

Does anyone understand the process governing the splash's transition from film to droplets? I'm guessing it has to do with surface tension and the thickness of the film, but viscosity and inertia could play a role too. Anyone?

I wasn't sure why the milk bounced against the resistance of black coffee either, but according to the chemical engineer I just co-opted it is indeed surface tension. Apparantly, even though the milk is a more viscous substance, the molecules on the surface are at odd angles to each other whilst those on the surface of a liquid at rest are more tightly meshed together rendering it a "tougher" surface tension. Same with water against water too, much of the splash is the falling droplet rather than displaced liquid.

Another discovery: if you're stood at a urinal and someone you know who is a chemical engineer wonders in, you get the strangest looks if you ask what they know about fluid dynamics.
posted by vbfg at 2:55 AM on January 30, 2007

...that said, I notice on re-reading that I've answered my own question instead of yours. Again, surface tension is the governing force. A body of anything liquid that is in mid air will tend towards a sphere because of a fairly even distribution of force across it's surface. The "force", or rather resistance to force, is supplied by surface tension. If it was under weightless conditions in a perfectly still environment then it would be perfectly spherical. Planets and stars are spherical for much the same reason, except in those cases it's gravity which supplies the dominating force rather than surface tension.
posted by vbfg at 6:15 AM on January 30, 2007