What is up with this helicopter? Is this picture photoshopped?

Question

I found this weird pic of a chopper and my friend thinks it's not photoshopped and I do, because I can't see any reason that a photo would end up looking like that... Can anyone explain this?

http://www.photoblog.com/ScreamingCactus/2008/05/03/

Answer 1

My vote would be that it was photoshopped.

If you look at the blade closest to you, the tip of the blade is pointing towards the tail.  (Leading edge to trailing edge)

The blade in the middle is also bent from the leading to trailing edge.

The blade on the far side is bent in the opposite direction!   If all three blades had the same force applied, the tip should be pointing towards the nose instead of the tail!

That would be unless, of course, we happened to get a snapshot of a new top-secret helicopter as it transitions to warp speed!

Answer 2

high speed shutter on the camera if the camera would have had a slower shutter speed then it would have looked perfectly normal  because the human eye looks at things like this and the brain keeps them put together its strange to see things like this when we dont have the rest of the images in  our mind to go with it its perfectly normal and not photshopped

Answer 3

it is very possible it wasnt photoshopped...the deep sound waves a heli makes can make a camera do things like that...

i know when i was filming my 12in subs in the back of my car on full blast my camera was "wavy" and it looked very photoshopped..but it was just how deep the bass was

also the fact at how fast the blades are moving, a camera cant capture all of the heli at once, there will be mili seconds off...

deep sound waves do strange things...

it really depends on the camera more then anything else, wether it was a phone or a nikon....

Answer 4

The camera's shutter speed was slow which makes a moving straight object look curved. It was not photoshopped and the helicopter does not have bent blades. Neat picture though.

Answer 5

It was the camera.

Answer 6

I t looks like the type of lens used. More than likely a telephoto lens used to make the helicopeter appear to be closer than it is.   Like with a fish eye lens, portions of the picture towards the edge is distorted.

Answer 7

I agree it is caused by the velocity, angle, camera speed, distance, et al; but what are the two antennae toward the tail?

Answer 8

it is not photoshoped its is just digital camera pictured. the shutter and exposition together form this weird images. it is caused by a picture taking procedure, where the digital camera reads pixel per pixel, so basically the blade moves while the picture is taken. thus this happens to form... the taking of the image takes a certain amount of time, and the pixels are read from say left top corner row by row to the bottom right corner.

doing the same image by classical camera would leave the blades hazy, as they would move while the camera exposes the photosensitive field. what is different is the principle - the classical camera exposes all the field simultaneously, while the digital one scans the picture /the way like the picture is reproduced later in the monitor or tv/ row by row. thus the moving of the blade happens to form these odd effects.

the helicopter itself is not hazy, because it is moving not that fast as the blades do and because of that the helicpoter remains stable /actually the picture would be twisted a bit, too, but it is not possible to notice /

Answer 9

In addition, the rotor blades lead and lag, meaning they actually move forward and backwards during flight, think of a ceiling fan made of rubber, when you turn it on the blade would spring back first the catch up with it self. so this pic is probably a mix of all those things including the speed, angle of the shutter and helicopter

Answer 10

I think it's been Photoshopped. That kind of flexing would only happen if the blades had just started moving from a full stop. First of all, that kind of acceleration of the blades is impossible without breaking the shaft. Second, the copter is flying already. If the blades are spinning enough to generate the lift, the cetrifugal force of spinning them around will keep them relatively straight.