Comments on: Bunny Outruns Airliner

Bunny Outruns Airliner

brownpau — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:20:26 -0800

Bunny versus Airbus A380. The bunny was on the runway as the A380 came in for a landing, but managed to avoid getting pancaked by bolting as the behemoth decelerated. We salute you, Runway Bunny.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:21:10 -0800

[via accordion guy]

By: isopraxis

isopraxis — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:25:49 -0800

Yay.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:28:26 -0800

I'm disappointed that we only have still photos, not video, but I am of course pleased that we did not end up with a bunny with an airplane on its head.

By: Acey

Acey — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:29:58 -0800

I call bullshit... there is no way that photo is real. It's too good to be true.

By: sharksandwich

sharksandwich — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:32:36 -0800

The rabbit didn't understand the concept of moving sideways?

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:33:17 -0800

I want to call bullshit, but I want it to be true more.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:37:22 -0800

sharksandwich, anyone who has driven down a rural road at night would affirm that, no, rabbits do not understand that concept.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:42:21 -0800

After lots of driving in northern Arizona/southern Utah I'm convinced that rabbits only understand the concept of moving sideways if moving that direction would put them in more danger (ie. crossing a road with one car bearing down on them with no other cars for miles). I'd like to add, though, that I missed them every time.

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:44:23 -0800

That rabbit is so focused.

By: Godbert

Godbert — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:45:10 -0800

I also think it's BS. I find it extremely unlikely that the rabbit can run at the same speed as the plane, which it would have to be doing to avoid either being blurred (like the background) in the photo.

By: prostyle

prostyle — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:48:22 -0800

So you're trying to tell me an airplane that is touching down in one end of the frame and a rabbit mid-sprint on the other end would be the only objects in focus? Hah.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:49:49 -0800

If you look closely, you can see Wile E. Coyote piloting the plane.

By: Doorstop

Doorstop — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:50:05 -0800

it looks like the plane was coasting. and that rabbit is one speedy mofo! go bunny go!

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:50:44 -0800

I once owned a rabbit that could generate over 20,000lbs of thrust. The little sucker just dissappeared one day. True story.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:52:12 -0800

The image itself screams photoshop, from the perfectly-focused-and-crisp edges of the plane to the canned-filter motion blurring of the background. That said, bunnies. YAY!

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:55:52 -0800

posted by Godbert I also think it's BS. I find it extremely unlikely that the rabbit can run at the same speed as the plane, which it would have to be doing to avoid either being blurred (like the background) in the photo. The reason the plane and the rabbit are crisply focused while the background is blurred is because the photographer used a technique called panning.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:56:11 -0800

Small mammals in general seem to have a problem with turning to get out of the way of things. Some human-type mammals do as well, generally in bad action scenes. Those photos do look all kinds of fake, though. The bunny is too crisp (visually crisp, not sucked into jet engine crisp). But who would fake something like this? Seems too prosaic for a hoax. on preview: what everyone else said.

By: m@

m@ — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:56:13 -0800

Oryctolagus cuniculus don't look particularly long legged or fast which makes it all that more remarkable. This guy (Lepus californicus) would have just jumped over the plane.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:57:55 -0800

whoops, wrong link.

By: mendel

mendel — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:59:31 -0800

The image itself screams photoshop, from the perfectly-focused-and-crisp edges of the plane to the canned-filter motion blurring of the background. What do you think the people who do those pictures with Photoshop are imitating? Photographers have been capturing fast things for decades before Photoshop existed. It's not easy, but it's pretty far from "hard", too, especially when you've got a tripod that lets you pan smoothly along one axis. The copyright on the bunny pictures is Airbus's. If that professional photographer wasn't capable of taking perfectly-focused-and-crisp images of a rapidly-moving airplane, I doubt he'd have been hired by Airbus in the first place.

By: drstein

drstein — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:02:22 -0800

One would think that the reverse thrust jet blast from the aircraft would have dusted the critter. Rabbits are unbelievably stupid critters sometimes. I saw one get slurped into a Boeing 737's engine at the Sacramento Int'l Airport once. The rabbit looked like it was going on a suicide mission. Aircraft throttled up a bit to taxi away, and *splat* - one shredded rabbit. Rabbits are fast, but not *that* fast. These photos not only look Photoshopped, but they look like some crap from Microsoft Flight Simulator.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:03:20 -0800

So you're trying to tell me an airplane that is touching down in one end of the frame and a rabbit mid-sprint on the other end would be the only objects in focus? Hah. Yes. Looks to me like the photographer was panning--moving the camera with the plane and rabbit, and if they are going about the same speed and the photographer is lucky, they will be sharp and the background will be blurred. Doesn't look 'shopped to me. There's only one photo; the second is an enlargement of the first. On preview: what mendel said.

By: jmgorman

jmgorman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:03:53 -0800

This plane is still in testing, no? They are probably shooting super high definition photos of every landing (and take off) just in case there is a problem. Just this time, they happened to catch a bunny on the runway.

By: Drexen

Drexen — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:04:26 -0800

AFAIK, rabbits tend to try and outsprint their pursuers, and then wait until the last moment to bolt in a different direction so as to throw the pursuer off track.

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:04:39 -0800

This photo is fake. Why? Because the bunny's legs aren't blurred. His little legs have to be moving backwards at the same speed that the background is, or else he wouldn't be moving forward fast enough to stay still in frame. His pavement-touching leg is frozen on the pavement, not blurred. Ergo, it is a Photoshop job. It's also very, very unlikely that any photographer could rotate exactly fast enough to capture plane + bunny perfectly, while the background was moving that fast.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:04:56 -0800

P.S. It has to do with motion, not focus.

By: m@

m@ — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:06:02 -0800

make that this guy (Lepus californicus). Not to be confused with Roadrunnerus fastus, or Coyote noncomposmentis

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:11:11 -0800

Most all airports are surrounded by grass lands (for safety and noise reasons). In consequence they support large rabbit populations, members of which often get killed on runways and access roads. This roadkill attracts scavengers such as vultures and vultures are the leading cause of airplane bird strike accidents. I've heard that one of the lowest jobs you can get at an airport is "bunny patrol" - basically a crew of guys with snow shovels and a pickup truck whose job is to steal the vultures lunch.

By: Godbert

Godbert — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:12:33 -0800

The reason the plane and the rabbit are crisply focused while the background is blurred is because the photographer used a technique called panning. I do some photography and am familiar with panning (and how it's not as easy as it looks), but when you consider the speed of a big A380 landing (which, based on the amount of blur in the back, indicating either a longish exposure or fast movement) and the top speed of a rabbit, it's unlikely they'd be moving at similar-enough speeds for both objects to be sharp in the frame. And, like Malor said, there's no blurring of the rabbit's legs.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:15:45 -0800

His little legs have to be moving backwards at the same speed that the background is, or else he wouldn't be moving forward fast enough to stay still in frame. His pavement-touching leg is frozen on the pavement, not blurred. Ergo, it is a Photoshop job.

And...

P.S. It has to do with motion, not focus.

Precisely. I'm more than aware of what panning looks like. I grew up in a family of professional photographers and work with cameras recreationally. But there is a marked difference between panned photographs and photoshopped imitations of panned photographs. Subtle details like the blending of the colors along the fuzzy edges of objects that hint at mask-jobs, other indicators like the aforementioned motion of the rabbits' legs, and so on, all scream photoshop. I could be wrong, obviously. They could have some freaky-insane high-res super-fast cameras capturing every second of every takeoff and flight, panning to keep the plane in focus. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. But my money is on fake. A cute fake, but a fake nevertheless.

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:16:39 -0800

The A380 could've been at the end of the landing strip coasting along at 40kmp/h or so. Everybody seems to be assuming it's just touched down...

By: onegreeneye

onegreeneye — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:16:54 -0800

Oryctolagus cuniculus don't look particularly long legged or fast which makes it all that more remarkable. This guy (Lepus californicus) would have just jumped over the plane. posted by m@ at 10:56 AM PST on June 19 And this guy, would have just turned into a bat to outfly the plane.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:17:36 -0800

From the article: "Wild rabbit is considered a delicacy in Germany." Mmmm... hasen feffer.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:17:43 -0800

I'd like to see a similar encounter between a seagull and Navy aircraft trapping aboard an aircraft carrier, but with ~30 kt of wind over the deck to start with, no seagull is going to be sitting there immobile to start with. At the park where I speedmarch with weights, I see grown rabbits and li'l bitty baby bunnies. The former scoot when they see me yomping down the trail toward them, but the little ones just sort of sit at the edge and watch me come by.

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:18:12 -0800

Let me phrase that another way: if the rabbit and the plane are visually in sync, then the rabbit's legs and the background must be in sync. The shutter speed isn't fast enough to 'freeze' the motion... not even close, from the smear of the background. So the rabbit must be moving at the same speed as the plane, and his legs must be moving at the same speed as the background. They're not.... so it has to be a fake.

By: scheptech

scheptech — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:19:17 -0800

Not shopped. To my eye the bunny is not as sharp as the plane and he (she?) seems to be at maximum front leg tuck, just a moment before the back legs come down for another thrust. Of course this would all be a lot easier looking at original res images...

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:19:58 -0800

posted by Malor This photo is fake. Why? Because the bunny's legs aren't blurred. His little legs have to be moving backwards at the same speed that the background is, or else he wouldn't be moving forward fast enough to stay still in frame. His pavement-touching leg is frozen on the pavement, not blurred. Ergo, it is a Photoshop job. It's also very, very unlikely that any photographer could rotate exactly fast enough to capture plane + bunny perfectly, while the background was moving that fast. The rabbit's legs are blurred. Also, if the photographer was using a relatively fast shutter speed--which you'd be using for panning shots of airplanes--you'd probably get minor blurring of the rabbit's legs, like in the photo. Also, what possible motivation Airbus would have in conducting such an elaborate and easily-debunked hoax? The PR isn't exactly great: "Look how slow our new plane is--rabbits can outrun it!" I mean come on.

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:21:49 -0800

And! Last I checked, cheetahs were the fastest animals on Earth, not rabbits. A cheetah's best speed is 64 mph for a short burst. A plane lands at 200mph plus. There's no way this picture is real.

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:22:33 -0800

fandango, if the shutter speed was fast enough to freeze his legs, it would have been fast enough to freeze the background.

By: lemhuxley

lemhuxley — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:23:04 -0800

I see some peculiar pixelation around the bunny in both pictures when I zoom in. It looks a bit fishy, I mean bunny.

By: warbaby

warbaby — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:25:33 -0800

Drexen's got it. Ask anybody that's done coursing.

By: horsemuth

horsemuth — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:32:55 -0800

another vote for fake

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:33:53 -0800

Malor: the flaw in your logic is that there is a great deal of "leverage" vs. the background when panning. That does not apply to the object being panned, including the rabbit's feet. So a shutter speed that will stop the motion of the feet can still not stop the background blur. Imagine following the rabbit with a flashlight: in the time it takes the rabbit to move his foot a centimeter, say a sixtieth of a second, the flashlight would have swept by several meters of background.

By: linux

linux — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:34:01 -0800

The European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was on the runway as the aircraft (F-WXXL) decelerated after its flight. Where in that does it imply that the plane JUST landed? As mentioned above, it may already have decelerated to a far slower speed, one where the rabbit could certainly outrun it. The amount of blur on the background is not because the plane is moving so fast, it's because the background is further away from the lens, so all you photo types do know that this means the background in relation to the lens is moving much faster than the plane in the foreground.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:35:10 -0800

Why would Airbus fake something like this and include it in a technical presentation on the A380? Their entire future is riding on the success of this plane; I would think that they'd avoid obvious digital manipulation of the photos they distribute to the press.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:38:03 -0800

Can't we just enjoy a good picture anymore? All this "Photoshop or Not" talk is so disheartening.

By: scheptech

scheptech — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:39:37 -0800

from The Fine Article: The European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was on the runway as the aircraft (F-WXXL) decelerated after its flight.

By: unmake

unmake — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:39:45 -0800

And I thought I needed better ways to spend my time..

By: facapulco

facapulco — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:41:54 -0800

I agree with PenDevil on this one. The European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was on the runway as the aircraft (F-WXXL) decelerated after its flight. For all we know, the plane could have been close to stopping when the picture was taken.

By: facapulco

facapulco — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:42:32 -0800

and with scheptech...:)

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:45:23 -0800

The headline says the plane is taxiing. That's usually pretty slow.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:46:37 -0800

posted by Malor And! Last I checked, cheetahs were the fastest animals on Earth, not rabbits. A cheetah's best speed is 64 mph for a short burst. A plane lands at 200mph plus. There's no way this picture is real. You're assuming the rabbit outran the jet, which, I agree, is highly unlikely. The more plausible explanation is the photograph was snapped as the rabbit was sprinting to safety as the jet bore down on him, and the rabbit was about to snap into a different direction (as Drexen noted) so the rabbit appears to be outrunning the jet. fandango, if the shutter speed was fast enough to freeze his legs, it would have been fast enough to freeze the background. Wrong. When you're panning, you're keeping a moving subject of the photo--in this case, the plane--in the frame and in focus while the background is left to go blurry. The foliage in the background is probably very far from the runway--remember, this is an airfield--and the photographer is using a long lens to capture the image. Additionally, the photographer is probably using a shallow depth-of-field in order to focus the attention of the photograph on the plane. I'm guessing this photograph has been cropped from the original, which probably includes more of the plane, and the photographer discovered the rabbit after he shot the picture. I've worked for and with professional photographers and I retouch photographs on a regular basis, and to effectively pull this off would require a great deal of work. I also work with marketing and PR agencies, and I can assure you the marginal gain in press attention from such an elaborate, costly, and easily-debunked hoax would be far outweighed by the potential for negative press it would generate ("Airbus almost kills innocent rabbit!" Airbus's newest jet is so slow, even jackrabbits can outrun it!" "Airbus lands planes on unsafe runways!", etc.) because corporations--especially airplane manufacturers--do not engage in Photoshop hoaxes to draw attention to their newest prototypes.

By: rough ashlar

rough ashlar — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:48:49 -0800

the plane could have been close to stopping when the picture was taken. And the rabbit may not have been in the way of any of the wheels either. There IS a whole lotta space that a plane body+wings pass over VS where the wheels touch.

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:52:25 -0800

Back and to the left... back and to the left...

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:53:19 -0800

Also: by looking at the picture, you can see that the rabbit is further in the foreground than the plane. It could be tens of feet closer to the camera. It would then not have to be moving as fast as the plane to be captured by the panning camera.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:53:42 -0800

That is one rarebit fiend.

By: jimmy

jimmy — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:56:42 -0800

Motion parallax. christ guys, anyone who's played an SNES game before should be able to catch that

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:01:59 -0800

I've just received an email back from the photographer. He says it took a few tries, but it was done with a carrot on a stick tied to the plane.

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:06:01 -0800

Or that airbus thinks it's a greyhound...

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:06:19 -0800

it was done with a carrot on a stick tied to the plane Which, ironically, was Photoshopped out of the picture.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:10:09 -0800

if the rabbit and the plane are visually in sync, then the rabbit's legs and the background must be in sync. What w-gp and linux and f-matt said. Think of it as geometry; you're not moving the camera along in a straight line, to keep the plane (and the rabbit) in frame, you're describing an arc. Holding a moving object in the foreground motionless in the lens does not mean you're holding the background motionless. The depth-of-field adds to the background blur.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:19:42 -0800

The smaller the stakes....

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:23:44 -0800

Sigh. Look, if you've ever done photoshop jobs, there are key signs to look for. Two giveaways lie in the motion blurring: first, it's perfectly, absolutely horizontal. That's the way photoshop's canned filter does it. Second, look at the line of the airplane's cockpit. Notice the subtle dark aura that radiates out, following the line of its cockpit perfectly? That's what happens when you mask an object, then motion blur its background, without carefully compositing in 'filler' pixels of the correct color. Again -- it is possible that a photographer captured this with a camera, no tricks, no photoshopping. What is interesting, though, is how hard he had to work to make it look like an obvious photoshop job.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:24:21 -0800

The smaller the stakes....

Sad but true. I am part of the problem.

By: saladpants

saladpants — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:28:12 -0800

Jury is still out for me, but given the clarity of the airplane's shadow, shouldn't the rabbit have one as well?

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:32:35 -0800

If you look carefully you'll see the bunny was actually running from a missile fired from the plane.

By: Godbert

Godbert — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:33:39 -0800

Two giveaways lie in the motion blurring: first, it's perfectly, absolutely horizontal. There are image stabalized lenses that can be set to only do IS in the vertical plane, just so you can still do side-to-side panning with the lens. So, if the camera was automated, or on a tripod, or the photographer had a steady hand and/or an IS lens, the fact that it's horizontal is not enough to conclude it's fake.

By: Sprocket

Sprocket — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:36:18 -0800

The photo is real, but this thread is fake.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:37:40 -0800

Also, it's no accident that the canned photoshop filter produces that effect. It's supposed to look like a panning camera picture. To say that's a "giveaway" that it's fake is putting cart before horse.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:39:36 -0800

posted by verb Look, if you've ever done photoshop jobs, there are key signs to look for. Two giveaways lie in the motion blurring: first, it's perfectly, absolutely horizontal. That's the way photoshop's canned filter does it. Here's the image. I see a lot of horizontal streaks, and diagonal wavyish streaks that are not the product of Photoshop's motion blur--they're the result of a handheld pan or a pan on a monopod, on an image-stabilized lens. Second, look at the line of the airplane's cockpit. Notice the subtle dark aura that radiates out, following the line of its cockpit perfectly? That's what happens when you mask an object, then motion blur its background, without carefully compositing in 'filler' pixels of the correct color. Again -- it is possible that a photographer captured this with a camera, no tricks, no photoshopping. What is interesting, though, is how hard he had to work to make it look like an obvious photoshop job. Can you please explain what possible motivation Airbus would have in concocting this hoax, and how all parties involved managed to keep it a secret?

By: dontoine

dontoine — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:40:00 -0800

poor rabbit

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:44:38 -0800

Uh-oh. fandango Matt has played the Conspiracy Theory card. Now we're in for it!

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:45:23 -0800

That little dude is just haulin' ASS! He gots to GO! I'll see you motherfuckers LATER! Every time I look at that picture I clap my hands with glee. If that is the work of photoshop then more photoshop please.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:50:22 -0800

Can you please explain what possible motivation Airbus would have in concocting this hoax, and how all parties involved managed to keep it a secret?

I wasn't suggesting some kind of X-Files conspiracy theory or something -- just that it set off all my usual red-flags, especially in the absence of any supporting information or anecdotes. "This showed up as a lighthearted ha-ha moment in an airbus technical presentation" doesn't to me say "A huge company is staking their reputation on the veracity of the image." I've seen screwier, goofier joke images taken seriously by people at respected industry publications before. That said, what Godbert said caught my attention:

There are image stabalized lenses that can be set to only do IS in the vertical plane, just so you can still do side-to-side panning with the lens. So, if the camera was automated, or on a tripod, or the photographer had a steady hand and/or an IS lens, the fact that it's horizontal is not enough to conclude it's fake.

That's something I hadn't considered. Thanks for pointing it out. Like I said, it's perfectly possible that it's an actual photograph, just that all the individual elements of it set off 'fake flags.' It's not terribly important, and it is a funny image.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:53:03 -0800

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:03:20 -0800

Wild rabbit is considered a delicacy in Germany. Oh god, it's that awful overused phrase is considered a delicacy... writers just can't ever seem to stop trotting it out. If it's considered a delicacy, it IS a delicacy already. It doesn't mean everyone has to like it. Spare us the cliched, passive phrasing!

By: Flashman

Flashman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:10:42 -0800

The weird thing that's throwing everyone off here is that it's not even a rabbit - it's obviously some freakish genetic hybrid of a koala bear and an ostrich, and has just escaped from the hold of the Airbus

By: Flashman

Flashman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:11:41 -0800

rpm - flashman considers that pretty funny.

By: SweetJesus

SweetJesus — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:13:04 -0800

Can you please explain what possible motivation Airbus would have in concocting this hoax, and how all parties involved managed to keep it a secret? No reason. People on MiFi just love to play "bullshit-detective" even if there is nothing to detect. Makes 'em feel important.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:15:32 -0800

is considered a delicacy... writers just can't ever seem to stop trotting it out. If it's considered a delicacy, it IS a delicacy already. No it's not. Something *is* a delicacy if and only if *I* like it a lot. If you like it a lot, it's merely "considered" a delicacy. Wrongly considered to be one, that is. If they like it a lot, it's a culinary oddity.

By: SteveInMaine

SteveInMaine — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:20:04 -0800

Mmmm... hasenfeffer. I guess that would make this hasenfefferfilter. Kill dah wabbit!!! Hope he remembers to turn left at Albuquerque.

By: doctor_negative

doctor_negative — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:22:13 -0800

Fake. Whoever it was that said the legs should be blurred, too, is absolutely correct. The bunny would have had to have been sliding down the runway in a static pose for this shot to have happened. And the background looks like Photoshop work to me.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:26:30 -0800

No reason. People on MiFi just love to play "bullshit-detective" even if there is nothing to detect.

Just like people love to play bullshit-detective-detective. C'mon. It's the internet.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:34:11 -0800

Somebody has to hold Airbus's feet to the fire.

By: saladpants

saladpants — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:34:53 -0800

This website seems to have shots from the same day, and looks like it's from the same angle. No rabbit seen, but at least it shows the plane in the photo was actually in Hamburg on the day in question...

By: sergeant sandwich

sergeant sandwich — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:35:20 -0800

Can you please explain what possible motivation Airbus would have in concocting this hoax, and how all parties involved managed to keep it a secret? is there any indication that airbus is actually involved in this? i mean this picture is on a third-party site, and there's no mention of it on the official airbus site (none that i can find anyway). this could be a prank by the hosting site, or perhaps someone's pulled a fast one on them? it looks pretty fake to me too. but hey, i'm just some guy.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:36:59 -0800

It's not fake. It's the same effect as if you were panning at the Daytona with a super-fast shutter speed and shallow depth of field. You would get sharp images of the cars, and a blur of the spectators. Moreover, the photographer was clearly having to take as many shots as possible of the landing, because it's not like they're taking the plane off again and again until they get a clear shot. This pic is probably the only one clear enough to be worth showing. MeFi: Long live cynic chic.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:37:41 -0800

pleased that we did not end up with a bunny with an airplane on its head. I don't understand what you just said, so here's a picture of a bunny with an airplane on it's head...

By: Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:38:58 -0800

There are lots of real photographs that look fake. It might have been that the airbus was simply taxiing slowly around and so the rabit was going as fast as the plane. Or maybe it was fake. Etheir way, uberlame FPP.

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:39:42 -0800

Yep, SweetJesus, internet detecting is my life. I'm a sad little man. Lots of good counter-arguments in the thread... I don't think any of them completely convinced me. I wish the picture was a little sharper. It looks like the runway is blurred too, and that's at the same distance... but it's really hard to tell at that resolution. While I'd bet on fake, I am forced to concede the picture is possible. So I withdraw my assertion that it absolutely isn't real. I'll substitute that I think there's at least one screwy thing about the picture, and I consider it very suspect. Perhaps there's something we're not being told? Sorry if I derailed the thread. It is funny. :) By the way, to those who argue about parallax... don't things that are further away move slower?

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:40:36 -0800

This thread is a wonderful showcase for the fact that MeFites are especially good at sounding like they know what they're talking about while focusing narrowly on the one or two things they do know and just assuming that's what was important.

By: Phantomx

Phantomx — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:40:46 -0800

While you may not be able to figure out exactly how far the rabbit and plane are supposed to have travelled, you can get a good idea of a relative distance if this was a true panned shot. Don't try converting meters in the background to meters in the foreground. Just look how much of an angle of the picture the building is blurred. The rabbit has to traverse the same angular distance in the same time the shutter is open. This is because the rabbit needs to be in the same spot in the photo throughout the whole time the shutter is open. This means that the length of the blurring on the photo is the distance the rabbit has travelled on the photo. This angular distance is a couple of rabbit body lengths. I don't know much about a rabbits gait or anything, but I doubt it's legs are in the same position for a couple body lengths of it's stride. I do indeed believe it is a fake, but just the ghosting of the airbus is enough to tell me that. The dark ghost in the sky and the light ghost in the ground/building part. I bet it was some photographer that snapped a picture of the rabbit there and to make it more humorous by motion blurring the background to seem like things were going faster. He probably was just trying to make people in the meeting get a chuckle and didn't intend on it being shown publicly.

By: Ber

Ber — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:45:54 -0800

I don't know about a rabbit getting out of the way of a 200 mph airplane, but birds don't have a good record against 95 mph fastballs.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:47:10 -0800

I bet it was some photographer that snapped a picture of the rabbit there and to make it more humorous by motion blurring the background to seem like things were going faster. He probably was just trying to make people in the meeting get a chuckle and didn't intend on it being shown publicly.

Nonsense! Either it's God's Own Truth, or a Nefarious Airbus Plot. You have to pick a side in this fight, man.

By: Saucy Intruder

Saucy Intruder — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:48:11 -0800

By: furiousthought

furiousthought — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:50:38 -0800

You know. It's entirely possible this picture was real, and then photoshopped by the graphics department in order to "clarify" things, which is kind of SOP in corporate communications like these.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:56:18 -0800

By: ceribus peribus

ceribus peribus — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:58:50 -0800

This plane, it has snakes?

By: NationalKato

NationalKato — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:04:55 -0800

Of all the harebrained ideas...

By: Flashman

Flashman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:06:36 -0800

Rabbits Under A Plane

By: rosemere

rosemere — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:10:51 -0800

Criminy. We're just a few minutes away from bunnyse poking its butt through a hole in the ceiling, right?

By: SmarterChild

SmarterChild — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:11:03 -0800

MetaFilter: Focusing narrowly on the one or two things we do know and just assuming that's what was important.

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:15:36 -0800

MetaFilter: Focusing narrowly on the one or two things we do know and just assuming that's what was important.

Clearly, I have missed the important broader philosophical context of this single-link FPP about a bunny rabbit outrunning an airplane.

By: Shane

Shane — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:18:13 -0800

Small mammals in general seem to have a problem with turning to get out of the way of things. Some human-type mammals do as well, generally in bad action scenes. Naturally you were thinking of Jet Li fighting himself in The One before he switches from Xin Yi to Ba Gua, right? ;-)

By: Binkeeboo

Binkeeboo — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:20:29 -0800

Here are some photos of animals using the panning technique. Notice how their legs are always blurred? Notice how they look very different than the bunny? The bunny image was captured with a very fast shutter speed. The background is either fake, or captued with a panning technique. These two things can't go together. I vote faked.

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:39:42 -0800

It's faked. The motovation for doing it? It makes a good light-hearted filler for that Powerpoint Sales Presentation. I've seen worse things done, believe me.

By: scheptech

scheptech — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:41:25 -0800

I have missed the important broader philosophical context Well ok, if it really needs to be spelled out: The rabbit is MeFi - and the big airplane is Reality. So far MeFi has completely avoided Reality and so, Yay! Notice how their legs are always blurred I dunno, the cheetas legs aren't that blurred and it appears to be a closer shot of a larger subject, the buns legs are much smaller relative to the frame and further away. Ok - I've just completed an indepth experiment (actually a completely ad hoc experiment) on this. With a longer focal length (180mm on digital) it is certainly possible to fill a frame with side to side motion blur at reasonable shutter speeds (125th). Background subject: a condo tower two blocks away.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:42:23 -0800

verb writes "Two giveaways lie in the motion blurring: first, it's perfectly, absolutely horizontal." Which is what you get with a panning head on a tripod. Video pods even include a built in level to make this task easier. Binkeeboo writes "Here are some photos of animals using the panning technique. Notice how their legs are always blurred? Notice how they look very different than the bunny?" This picture of a cheeta looks much like our rabbit.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:59:19 -0800

also a fake

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:02:26 -0800

Every picture is fake and you can't prove otherwise!

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:03:27 -0800

By: shockingbluamp

shockingbluamp — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:07:42 -0800

My whippet is WAY faster than any rabbit I was rooting for the plane. Rabbits drive my dog crazy.

By: raedyn

raedyn — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:16:32 -0800

This thread is a wonderful showcase for the fact that ~~MeFites~~ people are especially good at sounding like they know what they're talking about while focusing narrowly on the one or two things they do know and just assuming that's what was important.

Fixed that for you.

By: sgt.serenity

sgt.serenity — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:30:54 -0800

Both the rabbit and the aircraft are on the same focal plane -it's real. I believe !

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:41:56 -0800

And here's a squirrel outrunning a car.

By: [insert clever name here]

[insert clever name here] — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:42:43 -0800

I'm going to side with the people that believe its real. The plane had probably significantly decelerated at that point, essentially taxi-ing along. Sometimes its too easy to be a skeptic when you see something amazing. But I want to believe!

By: matthewr

matthewr — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:47:10 -0800

116 comments and no-one's mentioned that it escaped by a hare's breadth?

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:49:05 -0800

C'mon, you guys ... there's no such things as cameras or airplanes. It's all photoshop.

By: Stauf

Stauf — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:50:55 -0800

I'm reminded a bit of a thread a while back (I'm not even going to try to find it) that involved a photo or photos and some mefite pronounced that it was so obviously "photoslopped". Of course, a little later in the thread, the picture was shown to be, in fact, real.

By: furiousthought

furiousthought — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:53:15 -0800

I think I've been guilty of that a couple of times. Well, not using the neologism "photoslopped," which obviously calls for death, but the general swing-and-a-miss action, yeah.

By: neckro23

neckro23 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:52:23 -0800

Aw man. I was gonna put ceilingcat on the plane but fandango_matt beat me to it. My own theory that nobody seems to have considered: The image is Photoshopped, but legitimate. Perhaps the original was too sharp, and the photographer wanted to emphasize speed, so the background was blurred. I do think the "aura" around the nose of the plane (like near the white part on the tip) seems consistent with masking + blur filter.

By: a.

a. — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:52:25 -0800

This thread was worth it just for that image fandango. and yeah, I'm calling faked. The scale is out and the rabbit looks less crisp that the rest of the photo.

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:54:33 -0800

Run Rabbit Run, never ever stop little guy!

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:24:15 -0800

If you triangulate the relative positions of the photographer, bunny, plane & building, you can only conclude that the plane would be at least *double* the height of the Pentagon in the background. An obvious forgery.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:03:48 -0800

I have been throwing paper airplanes at my rabbits for the past two hours. Besides Grendel, who attempted to eat one of the planes, they've been mostly nonplused by man's mastery of the skies inside my apartment. Ergo, this is totally fake.

By: johngumbo

johngumbo — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:06:04 -0800

For God's sake, it's a friggin' FAKE! Even the lighting is wrong (bunny is lit from front left, plane from rear left) let alone the impossibility of the bunny skidding along frozen in exactly this pose for the entire duration of the shutter opening (somewhere around 1/60th perhaps). Maybe the background is faked too, that I can't tell, but absolutely the bunny is pasted in. However, why do I care? Is this post a fake? Am I really johnbunny?

By: missbossy

missbossy — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:08:09 -0800

It might not be photoshopped. It could be a small alien spacecraft, shaped like a bunny, moving horizontally at the same speed as the plane (hence no leg movement). You'd be surprised how often this happens. You've probably seen it loads of times but they, you know, zap you so you forget. Silly mistake to let it get caught on film.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:14:12 -0800

I'm intrigued by how much so many people claim to know about this picture, based on looking at a couple of JPGs on a web page. For example, you claim to be able to discern halos around the plan, the lighting angle of the bunny, and so on, all while studiously ignoring something that any professional (and by that I mean, "gets paid to do this for a living") web geek ought to remember: Photos posted to the web are all modified. Just like photos posted in major magazines are all modified. As neckro23 points out, even if the photo is real, it's most likely also "fake". What's most interesting is that so many people have become so invested in "debunking" this image. I wonder if it's not the working-out of some election-related issues....

By: verb

verb — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:50:47 -0800

What's most interesting is that so many people have become so invested in "debunking" this image. I wonder if it's not the working-out of some election-related issues....

Sweet mother of God, people. It looks fake. Some people said it looked fake, and then got shouted at. They explained why. Then someone started whining about conspiracy theories. It's a picture of a bunny running away from an airplane. Start a religion around this bunny. I don't care! It's just a monday, and I for one didn't feel like doing any productive work. :-)

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:52:00 -0800

Meanwhile, everyone ignores the reflection of the rabbit in the nosecone of the plane...

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:00:21 -0800

Wait! Beef just took off running from Paper Airplane #254. Progressing to "trot after bunnies making airplane noises" stage of the experiment.

By: rdr

rdr — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:08:48 -0800

sure, it might not be real. does it really matter? if nothing else, the story of ~~kaycee's death~~ this brave bunny's survival was a moving experience for some people. which is more than you can say for a lot of weblogs. (including mine.) if the story is not genuine, certainly the intentions of the wellwishers are as well.

By: Titania

Titania — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:24:56 -0800

Sgt. Serenity - Both the rabbit and the aircraft are on the same focal plane -it's real. The backgroud is blurred not because it is out of focus, but because the camera is moving. The bunny and the plane are the same distance from the camera, so for both of them to be clear, they'd have to be moving the same speed. If it was a fast shutter speed, the background would be less blurred. The fakeness of the photo makes it lame, but perhaps only photographers would see the signs. It is a good promo picture in that sense.

By: ninjew

ninjew — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:16:21 -0800

Is this still MetaFilter?

By: swell

swell — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:26:19 -0800

Every picture is fake and you can't prove otherwise! The Intelligent Designer placed fake pictures of the bunny on the Internets to make you question your faith.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:29:44 -0800

blue_beetle: You're my new favorite bug. verb writes: Clearly, I have missed the important broader philosophical context of this single-link FPP about a bunny rabbit outrunning an airplane. It is a visual emblem of the proletariat being overrun by the bourgeoisie. Vive La Revolucion, little bunny comrade! Ah ha! There's the conspiracy. The photographer is a secret Marxist. Yeah. And he's working to overthrow Airbus, even though they let him keep all the hasenfeffer he could scrape off the runway. But, as a vegan, he's disgusted by this job perk, and he vows to bring down the evil corporate giant, and the government to which it is a lackey. So, not only is the bunny symbolic of the plight of the proletariat in the modern world of global outsourcing, he also forces you to look at the image more closely. Especially the background. Where the subliminal messages are buried. The subliminal messages that tell you to sell your items and join a collective somewhere. Raise daisies. Build giant Trotsky statues made completely of icepicks. It's true. For I, here on the Internet, have said so, and I'm an expert on conspiracy theories ~~that I've just made up~~.

By: Tarn

Tarn — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:39:37 -0800

Seen it all before. Joseph Mallord William Turner painted a rabbit running in front of an early steam train.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:13:22 -0800

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: Bugs Bunny — Falling Hare (1943) [Google Video].

By: D.C.

D.C. — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:13:50 -0800

Look, if you've ever done photoshop jobs, there are key signs to look for. Yes indeedy, if you're experienced with the program you can "see" how fake compositions have been put together. I've been using Photoshop since the early 90s for print publishing. Two giveaways lie in the motion blurring: first, it's perfectly, absolutely horizontal. That's the way photoshop's canned filter does it. It doesn't look "perfectly, absolutely horizontal" to me, though it's hard to tell. I don't see anything with the motion blur itself that rules out use of a tripod, which the photographer would be using on a job like this. To my eye I some slight unsteadiness in the pan. Second, look at the line of the airplane's cockpit. Notice the subtle dark aura that radiates out, following the line of its cockpit perfectly? That's what happens when you mask an object, then motion blur its background, without carefully compositing in 'filler' pixels of the correct color. Free clue: Unsharp Mask plus jpeg compression artifacts. The Unsharp Mask filter increases local contrast in an image. This creates the light and dark "auras" around boundaries such as this one. This filter is very often used (and abused) in professional workflows prepping photos for publication. I'm not surprised in the slightest to see it used here. This image could be real; it could be fake. The low resolution and jpeg compression artifacts make it difficult to draw any firm conclusion.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 01:48:42 -0800

Until we see a bigger resolution on this, I don't see how ANY of you can say that you see details around the bunny. I can't tell if his legs are blurred or not, not with an image this small.

By: klarck

klarck — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:39:55 -0800

Fake. In real life, the rabbit would have flipped, rolled over twice and exploded into flames.

By: etoile

etoile — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:30:16 -0800

Dude. That is a GIANT bunny.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:12:36 -0800

Just to add one final comment to this thread, because I'm not sure that these points have been adequately spoken to:

The bunny and the plane are not the same distance from the camera. The bunny is probably 30-40 meters closer to the camera than the plane. (Hint: Look at the point where the bunny's feet touch the tarmac, and look at the front wheels of the plane.)
The pictures are production JPGs. That means they're a lot lower-res than the ones that the Airbus corporate runway-camera actually took. In fact, they're so low-res and so inherently munged by virtue of being JPGs that any discussion of artifacts and tell-tales here is a bit like studying the postage-stamp version of the Mona Lisa to learn about Leonardo's brush technique. All you folks crying "fake!" and then talking evidence are just engaging in the moral equivalent of bullshitting over beers.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:00:31 -0800

All you folks crying "fake!" and then talking evidence are just engaging in the moral equivalent of bullshitting over beers. Exactly. That's what makes this thread awesome.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:20:20 -0800

By: lodurr

lodurr — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 05:14:45 -0800

That's what makes this thread awesome. If by "awesome", you mean, "like watching a bunch of 12 year olds pick their scabs", then I agree completely. Also: Dude, that is a GIANT ~~bunny~~ Rabbit.