New Arsenal Arrival

For nearly three years, Machine Zealots has been using only GoPro Cameras for our YouTube show. GoPro has been kind enough to sponsor us two cameras, which helped and will continue to help us with our videos. Although the GoPros were extremely versatile, I had found them to be limiting in several different ways. The biggest problem I had with the GoPro Camera was that it didn't have an adjustable lens. Without a manual focus lens, it lacked depth of field. If we were to continue in making quality films, I felt that a new camera would definitely benefit our production quality from here on.

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on a lot of goodies that will potentially add to our video content: Canon EOS 5D Mk. III, Rode Videomic Pro, Revo Video Shoulder Support Rig, extra batteries, memory cards, and more.

The entire film production kit is here.

The Canon DSLR mounted on the shoulder rig with video mic attached.

The camera is gorgeous and the other items are high quality stuff as well. After charging the batteries for the camera and the microphone, I took it out to the cars for a film test. I am still getting to know the camera as I'm writing this, but hopefully I'll soon have a firm grasp on working with this camera. In the meantime, take a look at the screen shots from some video experiments I played around with.

Very versatile lens: EF 24-105 f/4L IS USM.

Playing with the depth of field.

Testing some light leaks on film.

I am very excited to start working with these new tools, and I hope you guys will enjoy the videos to come!

First episode on the Golf GTI

We have been looking forward to filming the new project car on Machine Zealots for a long time now, almost a year to be precise, and we are proud to present the first official episode featuring the 2012 Volkswagen Golf GTI.
Since it's pretty much a brand new car, Puyang is taking it slow on the modifying front. This is just a small, but fun modification to the car.
The Audi S-Line shift knob is a great addition to the GTI. The style, and colors match perfectly with the interior of the GTI. In the video we mentioned that the shift knob style is all based on personal preference. Being in an STI myself, I am biased towards any shift knob that is more ball shaped than anything else. So, I love his new shift knob!
For those of you who own a GTI and are looking into this shift knob swap, this modification isn't cheap in price. I won't say how expensive this mod was, but I will conclude that most people won't find the price worthy of the upgrade.
In summary though, Audi does make high quality stuff, but that carries on the large price tag. This modification took a bit of time figuring out, but it wasn't hard. If you aren't familiar with taking apart your car, we hope this video will help.
To the people who don't own a GTI, we hope you enjoyed this episode as well. We will make more episodes on the GTI as time goes on. In the meantime, stay tuned for upcoming videos on car shows, mods, and maintenance on both the STI and the GTI.

900

Thank you guys for the continual support on Machine Zealots. We reached 900 subscribers today, and we hope to see more people join as time goes by. We appreciate when you guys comment, and like our videos, it tells us how we can improve on future episodes. Yes, I do admit some of our videos may not be as successful as others, but we are glad you guys are sticking around anyway.

Below is an image from our upcoming episode where we'll have our first official DIY video on the VW Golf GTI. Hope you guys stay tuned!

The 2013 RevScene Spring Meet

This year has had the most enduring cold temperatures that I've ever experienced. It is coming near to the end of April and I'm still not sure whether I should swap my winter tires to my summer tires yet. The cold weather persisted to freeze us to death when Puyang and I went to the RevScene meet. However, it was still great to see everyone so enthusiastic about cars and friends.
There were a lot of cars that we have never seen, but also a lot of classics that we saw last year. I deliberately tried to film the cars that have never made it onto film in the past RevScene meet videos. If you would like to see some of the other cars from the 2012 Spring and Summer meet, be sure to check out those videos too
When I was shooting the film, I was sort of expecting this video to be very short. While walking around and looking at all these magnificent project cars, I realized we had skipped a lot of cars because we have used them in videos in the past. However, upon dumping all the files on the computer, I was surprised to find out that there were still too many cars! This final video has been edited down, and many of the cars I shot were actually cut out for the exact run time I had wanted.
This video wasn't a huge improvement compared to the videos shot last year, but we did experiment with some new film filters that I think made the video look a bit nicer. Hope you think so too.
We'll see what the Summer meet has in store later this year, but until then, stay tuned!