Sarah at the Prince of Wales -- taken with the Plunger-Baby(TM)

I had to drop by the Dunne and Rundle store which takes care of most of my photo accessory needs and show off my toilet-plunger tilt-shift contraption. One of the employees went: "what is THAT?" and when he learned what it was immediately dubbed it the Plunger-Baby(TM). They sell the Lens Babies after all and after I told them what it took to make the Plunger Baby(TM) it was clear that there was no competition. After all, not many people want to hack apart a toilet plunger and tape on a medium format lens.

Later on I wandered about the surprisingly rain-free downtown Vancouver to take photos, getting very weird looks including one from a photojo who was doing a speedwalk around with a 16-35 L held tightly in his hands. At that point I would trade my contraption for that L lens. Just kidding. After many shots squeezing the plunger tight to the 30D my hands were aching.

I got back home in time for a glorious sunset and dragged Sarah out for more pictures. I took an assortment with the Plunger-Baby(TM) and then more with my best portrait lens, the Carl Zeiss Flektogon 35mm f/2.4. Well, the Plunger-Baby is not going to make me put down that Flek any time soon. The Flek is simply an amazing portrait lens and on the crop body (x1.6) has the right focal length. See below:

The photo at the top of this post was taken with the Plunger-Baby(TM). This was exactly what I wanted. A selective focus lens where I could manipulate what part of the shot I wanted in focus. As you can see, it can have some very romantic effects.

Of course, you can do the same thing with some work in Photoshop or you can also get a filter to do the same thing. But I think the combination of the quality Bronica 75mm and the ability to adjust with the makeshift bellows made the effort worth it.