Thinking about it a little more, it might have some mileage. The IR spectrometer is just measuring the color of the avocado, albeit very precisely and under kn

Thinking about it a little more, it might have some mileage. The IR spectrometer is just measuring the color of the avocado, albeit very precisely and under known lighting conditions. One of the reasons photographers enjoy infrared photography¹ is because foliage shows up brilliant white against pitch black² skies³. Photosynthesis is inhibited by both green and IR light so plants are bright in IR for the same reason our eyes see it as green. I absolutely think that you could get the same result with a flash photograph from a good modern camera and probably just using the green channel. One of the many things these cameras are designed to be good at is detecting minute subtleties in shades of green⁴. I’m looking forward to trying it on the weekend. ― 1. Traditionally done with a monochromatic black and white film where only deep, bright reds gave the negative any density, rendering as brightness in a positive print. This is in contrast to “panchro” black and white where a bright object of any color would print as white. 2. Unlike blue light, the atmosphere disperses almost no infrared. 3. A good example of all of the above is here: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/infrared-willow-tree-study-rich-stedman.html https://fineartamerica.com/featured/infrared-willow-tree-stu... 4. Our eye’s sensitive to green is partly why digital cameras have twice as many green sensors as they do red and blue. It’s also why high fidelity inkjet printers use more shades of ink for printing photographs. (Epson printers use one yellow, two different cyans, and three different magentas.)