The conspiracy theorists are at it again! Skeetergate!

[FBM]

Taking the "it's possible" approach is the mainstay of the tinfoil hat crowd. You need to point out something that can't be explained by anything else but post-processing.

[Jason]

Right. Personally, I'm sure it's legit. I'm curious what that odd bit is at the end of the top barrel.. perhaps it's the shot cup, nevertheless there is nothing to suggest it's a shop.

[pErvinalia]

Modern cameras are multi-focus and produce a nuanced depth of field. Just saying that doesn't appear to be the case here and is reminiscent of a known journalistic technique for artificially rendering a depth of field effect in sporting events.

Dood. No camera technology is going to change the physics of light. Multi-focus means within the existing depth of field, not beyond it. On the same focal plane. The only one that's possible to manipulate due to the laws of physics. I have a pretty cutting-edge camera and it has no function whatsoever that can simultaneously focus fore- and background images with a fast shutter speed. It just don't work that way.

Not that you are wrong, but there's a technique called "focus stacking" that can allow you render a greater depth of field. If I'm not mistaken, most advanced cameras now will allow you to bracket focussing.

Yeah, exposure bracketing is possible, but multiple shots within one shotgun blast? You need a motionless subject for that, I think. Anyway, I'm not saying that it's impossible to shop something like that. With today's technology, hell no, it's not impossible. I'm just saying that there's nothing in that image that requires shopping. Everything I see can be explained by perfectly ordinary photographic principles.

Yep. Focus stacking will only really work for still nature.

[FBM]

Right. Personally, I'm sure it's legit. I'm curious what that odd bit is at the end of the top barrel.. perhaps it's the shot cup, nevertheless there is nothing to suggest it's a shop.

Good question. It could just be a fleeting pocket of compressed gas. http://thechive.com/2009/02/07/frame-by ... -5-photos/

[pErvinalia]

Has anyone mentioned chemtrails yet?

[FBM]

Has anyone mentioned chemtrails yet?

Yep.

[pErvinalia]

That could be Marxist Mind Control Gas (MMCGTM) coming out the end of that barrel. Just sayin'....

[Robert_S]

Official Whitehouse Exif data: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse ... hotostream

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Remember when "the camera never lies" was taken for granted? (Even if it was never true.)

[Coito ergo sum]

In all fairness, that rifle will have far more recoil than Obama's top-vented 20 gauge.

True enough, but hunting is something central to her persona. Obama's just trying to show pretend he isn't a hoplophobe.

There is also nothing at all wrong with hunting.

[cronus]

In all fairness, that rifle will have far more recoil than Obama's top-vented 20 gauge.

True enough, but hunting is something central to her persona. Obama's just trying to show pretend he isn't a hoplophobe.

There is also nothing at all wrong with hunting.

Other than it being a passtime implicated in countless extinctions...

[Coito ergo sum]

In all fairness, that rifle will have far more recoil than Obama's top-vented 20 gauge.

True enough, but hunting is something central to her persona. Obama's just trying to show pretend he isn't a hoplophobe.

There is also nothing at all wrong with hunting.

Other than it being a passtime implicated in countless extinctions...

As was buying meat for food.

The passenger pigeon was, for example, hunted to extinction, but people ate them. Same with the dodo bird. So, the people buying meat from the butcher were as much to blame as the hunter. That's why buying hamburgers but descrying a hunter for carving up venison is, to me, rather ironic (in the popular sense of the word ironic).

[hadespussercats]

You'd know what it was if it smacked you in the gob.

[Tero]

At least the real Obama posed sometime somewhere. The barn door was repaired. He shoots left handed as he would.

[klr]

Official Whitehouse Exif data: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse ... hotostream

"Flash Off, Did not fire"