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"]

 

Update: Had an issue with my theme earlier. Apparently the permission settings for the stylesheets were screwed up (no idea how that happened). I hope everyone can see the blog now :)

So what is a Unibrace? I am sure you might have heard of the brand Ultra Racing especially since locally they have been advertising extremely agressive. Anyway, just like Ultra Racing which sells anti-roll bars as well as many type of other bars (except for chocolate bars), Unibrace is another manufacturer which provides braces for Volkswagen cars.

Bruce Levin, an architect, product designer, and principal of Studiolevin in San Francisco, California, USA, is the designer of UNIbrace products. A long time Volkwagen enthusiast, Bruce has owned two MkII GTI’s, a MkIV GTI 337, and currently drives a MkIV .:R32. UNIbrace was started as an effort to combine the highest quality product design and fabrication, the love of the grassroots VW community, and on and off track spirited driving.

At the moment, there are two braces available for the Volkswagen Golf MkVI, Scirocco and the Golf MkV, the XB rear brace and the UB underbody brace. The XB rear brace is fitted at the boot of the Golf, right behind the back seats while the UB underbody brace, replaces the two stock metal plates as shown below.

Above - XB Rear Brace

See more images of the XB Rear Brace being fitted here.




(Above) The car originally comes with the two metal pieces. Looks rather flimsy and after removing them, they are actually flimsy.

Why I say that these metals look flimsy (I know they are!), look at some of the issues you might encounter with these stock braces.



(Image above obtained from Ryou's Modshop)

The bars above have already rusted! And this was on a less than a year old VW Scirocco. Imagine the horror especially if you take a corner and these braces break out.

This is where the UB underbody brace comes in. It replaces the stock two metal braces with a single large piece of brace (comes in two colours, red or black). Having a single piece to brace your car is a lot better than having two because you get the forces from the front and the rear to be distributed evenly across through the brace.




Also, red is a totally awesome colour! Didn't you know that red parts add additional horsepower to the car? Installation is fairly easy, all you need is to jack your car up and then remove the stock bars and then replace it back again with the Unibrace. I understand that for the Scirocco models, you might need a different set of screws for the Unibrace.

The brace comes in at a total weight of around 3kg and what it does do is to help stiffen up your drive especially when taking corners. So for those of you who are looking for braces to replace your Volkswagen's stock braces, these Unibraces are the right solution for you.

Personally, the Golf Mk6 1.4 TSI cars do come on the softer side compared to its older brother (the GTI) hence having these braces would definitely help improve the handling of your car. Of course the best option would be to use both the cross brace (XB) and the underbody brace (UB) together. Overall, I would recommend this product to those of you who like to take corners at quite fast speeds or if you regularly go for track days.

Also, they are rather rare here in Malaysia but head over to Ryou's Modshop here (or search for Ryou's Modshop in Facebook) to order one. The Unibrace FAQ is also available here about ordering and shipping as well as costs.

Okay, I have been procrastinating this for quite a bit but when the opportunity arose for a quick shoot at night, I thought let's go for it! Completely unprepared, I prepped my gears and head off, into the night, where I had totally NO idea on how to shoot cars at night.



First of all, I had to thank Kar Heng for organizing the quick shoot and for Jack Tan who has tonnes of experience shooting cars. Kar Heng as well for lending us his car, even though he was half drunk (*wink*).

So shooting at night, first thing I had in mind was cool lighting. Then when I arrived at the first location, totally lacking of ambient lighting as well as I don't have any sort of external lighting. I didn't have a tripod and a shutter release cable. Man, there is so much I got to learn when it comes to shooting cars at night. My bag ended up as my "tripod" and I had to use the timer function to ensure that there isn't any camera shake.



Funny thing was that I needed to get a lower angle in order to capture the reflection but any lower and I would have grass blocking the frame. Definitely was a hard thing to navigate in the complete darkness. Even the curious fisherman onlooker was wondering what the heck we were doing. Note to self, get a tripod, a good one which can go to an extreme low angle. Note to self, bring a torch light especially for night shoots to navigate around dark areas.



After realizing that it might be a lost cause, I quickly took a last shot of the twin cars before heading off to another location, where we wouldn't be disturbed as well as have more ambient lighting. Too many cars were coming about and we had to move our cars a couple of times to allow them through.



At first I started out using the natural light from the street lights but it seemed to not illuminate the car enough. So after that, Jack recommended that we tried mixing both natural light and torch lights and flashes. Didn't seemed to have enough kick though. After that we then decided to try out putting the car in complete darkness and then tried a little bit of light painting. That resulted in the images below.







At the end of the night, I learned lots of valuable lessons. Definitely would want to try shooting more as well as put more effort into planning. I think I will aim for an early morning shoot as well as shoot during sunset. Once I managed to get those done, I should also consider trying out automotive photography in the studio as well and finally to tackle the night shoot once more!

Verdict: Not entirely too satisfied but definitely room for lots of improvement!

Well this post is completely unrelated to photography but recently I managed to get a good look at various car mods around and found this particularly interesting for those of you who drive a Volkswagen car (namely the Polo, Golf, Scirocco, Jetta and Passat). Of course, this mod falls under the category of "In Car Entertainment" or ICE for short.

Just to give a little background and put this into context, the RCD series is basically the head unit for Volkswagen cars.



The image above basically sums what I am about to speak about or review. Now in Malaysia, the Golf GTI, Golf TSI, Polo and Scirocco 1.4 TSI comes with this head unit as standard. Its a great unit, it reads CD, for some models, it shows the parking sensors and provide you with information especially if you are going to reverse into something or someone.

Now, here comes the poison. Introducing the RCD 510.



This head unit is vastly different especially in terms of looks which relies on touch screen technology. Other added extras would be the SD card slot and there is an optional bluetooth connectivity kit which allows you to pair your handphone with it and make calls using the Multi Function Display (MFD) or via the controls on your steering wheel.

Here are some of the key changes you would see in terms of graphics that is shown when using the RCD 510 in place of the RCD 310.



Image above shows the welcome screen when you turn on the head unit.



This is when you use either a USB  thumbdrive to plug in to the system. The RCD 510 will display the song title, artist and the album name. Volume and song selection controls from the steering wheel is also available.



This shows the air conditioner controls. As dual controls have been selected, so there are two images depicting the air flow as well as the temperature of the respective areas. Of course this does not replace the control buttons which are still located below the head unit.



This is how the parking sensor will look like. There are two zones, front and rear. When you are rather close to an object it will flash out in orange as shown above. When you are VERY CLOSE, then a bright red will appear. The RCD 510 is also smart enough to identify if your car is a Golf or if it is a Scirocco. The display shown for the Scirocco is different than the one above because the current Golf TSI's sold here in Malaysia at this time, includes the "Light & Sound" package which also features a front sensor.

Note that the following images were not taken by me. I swiped this off my friend's page. If you are interested in getting the RCD 510, do check out his page here and here or just Google "Ryou's Modshop" and you will find it :)



This is how the Bluetooth integration kit would look like once it has been set up.



This is how it will look like from the Multi Function Display (MFD).

The RCD 510 comes standard in the Passat CC and Scirocco 2.0 here in Malaysia so if you go to any of the VW showrooms, you will see this head unit on those models.