It's funny that I wrote this post title since April the 8th and yet here it is still in my draft inbox of my blog. Anyhow, this is going to be a short and simple review of the E90 320d. The version I drove is the M-Sport kit with the full i-Drive system which is all in all a very good package. Especially now that the F30 has just been launched, you still might be able to get good bargains and fantastic discounts.

Coming from a guy who has driven a front wheel drive car all his life (well I had experience with a 4WD car when I was driving my Perodua Kembara previously), moving over to a rear wheel drive car was a new beginning for me. Personally, I can't really tell much of a difference, I did bring my car up Genting for a couple of runs but the main difference I can feel immediately was the steering. I tend to oversteer now a lot more compared to my Golf previously which tend to understeer at corners.

Handling wise I haven't had the chance to fully utilize BMW's so called perfect balance of a 50:50 weight distribution but being a fat 100kg guy, I think I totally screwed that up the moment I sat in the car. Right now the car is completely stock and even with the M-sport suspension, the car is comfortable indeed. That is mostly also due to the 17" rims it comes with and with rims that size, the tyres are on the tad comfortable side of things.

Now before anyone asks, for the 320d, the d stands for Diesel and yes, the diesel engine does make a bit of a noise hence I call the car a lorry or a taxi at times (well the older taxies which ran on diesel now that all the newer ones run on natural gas). But the moment you step inside the car and close the door, you can barely hear anything. Ride comfort is good and you just have to get used to the engine noise when you accelerate. Its not the usual engine sound you hear but rather, the sound of a diesel powerplant pushing you all the way

I used the term pushing is because this damn car gives you 380Nm of torque on paper. I brought it over to Sunway to have it dyno tested and the results was rather surprising! It resulted in 171whp and 370Nm of torque. All of that on the wheel! I definitely would encourage those of you who have the 320d to get the powerkit which then pushes the car to over 200hp and 420Nm of mouth watering torque. But thats just me, a performance junkie, well in some way. I just love the thrill of the acceleration but I usually chicken out at high speeds.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="616"] Source: PaulTan.org[/caption]

Interior wise everything is as standard as what BMW can give you, comfortable leather seats, electric seats, a nice M-sport steering wrapped in leather, i-Drive with Navigation and DVD playback. All in all a good package. I really did like the bluetooth integration with my phone as well as the DVD player made me go out to buy a bunch of DVD-R to burn some TV series and Top Gear on them.

In terms of running or servicing costs, because BMW's come with their BS+RI (BMW Service + Repair Inclusive)  which basically means that your service is free for the first 3 years or 100,000km, that means you don't have to pay for anything when you bring your car in for service. And I mean everything including engine oil, brake pads, etc.



Compared to the F30, it uses the same exact engine but the F30 has a new gearbox. The downside is that at this point in time the F30 320d has quite bad specs, no navigation and the screen is only 6.5". The F30 is indeed a little roomier especially for the rear passengers but for the front seats, the seats are not the sportier type and its aimed more towards comfort hence the feel of a larger cabin space.

In conclusion, the car is indeed crazy, crazy that you have so much torque and crazy that at a full tank of diesel (RM1.80 versus RM1.90 for Ron95 petrol), I can travel more than 700km. Heck, at a full 100% city driving, I manage to achieve 700km even through the notorious KLCC traffic jams on Tun Razak. So if you are keen on getting a BMW on the cheap, head over to your nearest dealer to find out some of the fantastic deals they have.

Real-time Fuel Stats

You can check out the current fuel consumption of the 320d in the link below.


 

Over last weekend, I managed to get an opportunity to shoot this beautiful car during an automotive workshop organized by Live Life Drive magazine. The entire workshop was held at the new Renault showroom over at Section 13. There were about 13 participants in total (I think) and most of the time, we never really had our alone time with the car.

Hence the lack of interior shots as well as the white Megane RS which was in the showroom itself. The instructor was Sherman who guided us through from shooting cars in an outdoor location, what are some of the tips that we needed to be aware of.

After that, we moved into the showroom where Sherman then explained to us about the things to watch out and what to be aware off especially when shooting cars in the showroom itself as well as in an indoor location.

In between shoots, I managed to have a chat with Sherman about shooting cars and what I thought about it. He did give me some insight about shooting cars and I learned that cars alone are as much as shooting a portrait session. Instead of looking at the couples as just another human being, we tend to learn more about them, find out their history, what their likes and dislikes are in order to capture "them". The same goes for cars, the history behind the car, what car is it, what does the car represent.

At the beginning of the workshop, the participants were also informed that there will be a winning shot competition where each participant would submit their best photo. I took this time as a challenge and made a complete fool of myself because I shot it RAW and forgot to change it to JPEG. Another surprise was that the image was going to be straight from camera so there was no Photoshop manipulation.

After shooting in the showroom, we moved on towards the back of the showroom where a Renault Koleos was waiting for us to photograph as well as the yellow Megane RS.

At the end of the day, this was the image I submitted.


Although the image I posted up here was a slightly touched up version as the original image had a bit of a yellow hose which was left on the ground where I cloned it out.


Photo credit: Live Life Drive Magazine

Here was a photo of my shot being displayed on the projector during the end of the workshop and when the judges were giving their comments.

A little bit of technical stuff here, I shot mainly with a Canon 5D Mk2 in full RAW. I used mostly the 17-40mm F4 lens throughout the shoot with the occasional change to the 50mm. I wanted to use the 70-200mm lens but couldn't get the right angle and shot that I wanted. All of the photos were shot in natural light, placement of the cars was done by the showroom guy so even if I wanted the car at a different angle, I couldn't.

At the end, I was glad as my photo was selected as one of the top 5, woohoo!

Photo credit: Live Life Drive Magazine

Thanks to that win, I received a small goody bag and of course a big boost in terms of confidence. I did recall that one of my projects last year was to start shooting more automotive themed shoots so this was one of my initiatives. Can't wait to shoot even more cars especially if the opportunity arises!

Do check out some of my shots below.
[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="rand"]

More photos and information about the workshop is available here.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.306430839427798.68914.199088550162028&type=1

Back in May this year, I attempted my first night shoot on the Volkswagen Golf. Only recently did I attempt my second shoot. This time it was done within 45 minutes and the location was extremely impromptu. Let's just say that I was driving back from Putrajaya and I made a detour towards an industrial area.

Here are the results of the shoot. Shot completely in natural light mainly because it was an impromptu shoot and I didn't have anyone to help me to carry my speed-lights.

[caption id="attachment_3197" align="alignnone" width="540" caption="Volkswagen Golf 1.4 TSI"][/caption]

[gallery link="file" orderby="rand"]

 

[caption id="attachment_3167" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Volkswagen Scirocco 2.0 with a Rieger bodykit"][/caption]

Here is the continuation of photos that I took during the previous shoot which I organised with the Volkswagen Malaysia Club members. More photos are also available in my previous post.

[caption id="attachment_3166" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Volkswagen Scirocco 2.0 with a Rieger bodykit"][/caption]

The funny thing about the image below was that while I was busy snapping away, a couple of "mat rempits" decided to join in on the fun and I was pleasantly surprised that one of my frames managed to capture him in "action".

[caption id="attachment_3168" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Mysterious Trio"][/caption]

So can you guess the differences between the 3 cars above? Let's see if you can guess which of the models are on displayed in the image above. I will buy whoever (excluding those who attended the shoot) a "teh ais"  if they manage to guess them correctly and comments on it in the comment section below.

[caption id="attachment_3167" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Volkswagen Scirocco 2.0 with a Rieger Bodykit"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3169" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Comfort, Normal and Sports mode!"][/caption]

According to the owners of the cars above, they all agreed that the left one is on comfort mode, the middle one on normal mode and the white one on sports mode.

I definitely can't wait to plan for another shoot and this time to spend a little bit more time on a single car.

It was a bright sunny day when a group of VW enthusiasts all decided to meet up at Putrajaya on a Sunday morning. Well, we didn't really all decided together but more towards an opportunity for me to be able to photograph some VW cars, talk to some of the other members and get to know them better. This is all part of my procrastinated project where I wanted to take the effort to shoot more cars and build up my automotive photography portfolio.

Although this was my first time but I also learned quite a lot of things to take into consideration. Here are some of the results.



Group shot of all the cars which participated in the shoot that morning.



A Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI with the Scirocco R bumper and custom Euro license plate.



A white VW Scirocco 2.0 TSI with a full Rieger Bodykit











Next up is a series of photos of a Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI which is not black but rather in the colour, Dark Maroon. But yeah, it looks black in the photos. This car sports a Supersprint exhaust system, Caractere 18" Rims, a Scirocco R bumper and Rieger side skirts.

















Overall I learned that when it comes to photographing cars, a lot of factors come into play. The more I look at my photos, the more that I know I can do better and the mistakes that I have made along the way.

Stay tuned for more photos!

Being part of the WPPM does have its benefits. Though I am a little shy as I haven't posted about photography in a while, this time I managed to join Patrick Low on one of his Photographer's chill out sessions at Autodetailer. In case you may not be familiar, Autodetailer is located at Jaya One and it prides itself as Malaysia's most advanced detailing studio.

I first met Darren when I attended the Nigel Barker's workshop a while back. Am glad that he managed to recognize me when I arrived at his studio.


Took this shot using my iPhone 4 and edited the image using SnapSeed

As I was at another event prior to this, by the time I arrived at the batcave, Darren was already giving the rest of the group a tour of his detailing studio. It is really really impressive and there has been countless of articles on the Star as well as car magazines which featured his studio.


Large turnout at the Photographer's Chill Out session

It was a real pity that my gears were in for service at the time or else I would be happily taking photos of his studio but I was very impressed with his car studio setup as well as his post processing setup. I have never seen a Wacom tablet that is larger than a 24" iMac in my life before!

After going through a tour of the detailing studio, I was utterly amazed! No wonder plenty of people send their cars to Darren to detail as well as restore. It's just amazing to see the amount of detailed work they put into each and every car. I was literally blown away and amazed and I can say that his detailing studio is the only one that has an iMac and a uber large Wacom tablet :P

Here are some of the images taken by Darren and displayed on his Facebook Page.





The last of the 3 images above has me very intrigued lately. Mainly because that is Darren's car and he has been working on his personal project which is to transform his Mito into a unique looking mini car which looks totally awesome. You can find out more about Project Mito at the blog or you can always check out their Facebook Page for latest updates. Do check out this Facebook Album set for a plethora of poisonous images.

I think I should do that as well for my Golf but most of the time, my Golf is pretty much dirty from all the rainy weather we have been having. It definitely needs a good wash!

For more information about WPPM and the monthly Photographer's Chill-Out Sessions, do visit the WPPM Facebook page for updates.