Superstar

Owen Farrell kicked all 12 points as England beat Ireland 6-12 in horrible conditions in Dublin. It was always going to be a tough game with both teams listed as joint favourites by the bookies. The winner would most likely go on to win the Six Nations and possibly the grand slam.Having been slammed himself by a big tackle in the opening minutes, Farrell recovered to slot home 4 penalties in a calm, measured fashion. He really demonstrates amazing maturity and concentration for such a young guy. He's still only 21 and he's keeping the highly experienced Toby Flood on the bench.Having seen the pouring rain I was quite happy to be warm and cosy watching the game from my sofa. Earlier in the week saw me at England's open training session at Pennyhill Park with my buddy Paul Terry. As well as shooting the training I had been asked to get some portraits of some of the young star players in the England lineup. With a couple of days thinking time, it didn't need a rocket scientist to come up with a star theme. The key was how to execute the shot I wanted in a very short period of time, outside in the open air, with only about a minute of shooting time with any of the available players.Before I go any further I should say that, to a man, the England players I photographed were polite, professional and a pleasure to deal with (if only for a minute each). Definitely the way things should be.So, back to the shoot. Firstly I wanted a moderately wide angle with a black background. With no studio or black background available, the only option was to reduce the ambient light to nothing, and then build up the portrait light by light. I put myself in a shady area with a shady background (it was sunshine and a few clouds), and decided to use my Sony RX1 (first impressions here) to get a very high shutter speed and flash sync to zero the ambient light. I ended up with 1/1000th, f/5.6 and ISO 50. I'd only get 1/320th sync speed with my Canons which would be too slow resutlting in too small an aperture for the power of my lights, so the RX1 was the only tool for the job.Next step was to introduce the lights. The main light was a Canon 580 EXII shooting through an umbrella at full power, very close to and just above the subject so it was just out of frame on the right, and triggered by Pocket Wizards. This setup lets the light fall off from the players face so their white shirts weren't too bright and distracting. In reality I could have done with two flashes each at half power for faster recycling and a bit more power available should I have needed it, but it was OK for the job in hand.The big flash from that was sufficient to make optical triggering of the three rear "stars" effective. These were Yungnuo 560 and 565 flashes set to S1 optical slave mode and mounted on a Manfrotto light stand with a 3 way head holding two flashes and a Manfrotto clamp holding the other flash. I didn't want a perfect triangle that I would have got with the 3-way bracket so the clamp let me set the 3rd flash a bit lower. Set back a way, these 3 flashes triggered very nicely from the flash from the main light. I think they were set to 1/8th or so, and full 105mm zoom, and had simple snoots made from gaffer tape to avoid too much spill. To complete the star effect, I screwed a star filter onto the RX1. You can get a certain starriness with a small aperture but I was shooting at 5.6 so the star filter was a definite requirement. I also set the RX1 to flash white balance for shot-to-shot consistency.Lastly I had a 5th flash on the left to fill and add a bit of rim light, again a Yungnuo flash optically triggered (can't go wrong for £50).At least I was keeping the other photographers amused as they watched me assemble the wobbling contraptions. After a few tests with Paul to check the exposure, we were all set and Owen Farrell was my first subject.Bearing in mind that the players probably find the media sessions the most tedious and annoying things to do, its paramount to be polite and efficient, and let them get on their way as soon as practical. A handshake, introduction and quick explanation let them know what was going to happen. I told them that I was shooting with a small compact camera and showed it to them, which was quite amusing as 4 or 5 Canon 1Ds were lying on the floor with a couple of 400mm lenses, one of which were used to weigh down the light stand with the umbrella. Happily none of the players were the least bit concerned about having their portrait taken with what looks like a point-n-shoot.The only technical problem I had was that the live view screen on the RX1 shows the scene as it is exposed, i.e. completely black. Only when you activate the focus does it open the aperture and let you find the subject, lock focus and then recompose to shoot. As soon as the focus is locked the screen goes black again to reflect the unlit exposure so the recompose was a bit of guesswork but the few practice shots I had done with Paul had paid off.So, two shots looking at the main light, two shots (one smiling) looking at the camera, and I was done and the player on his way after a quick handshake, thank you and good luck wishes for the Ireland game.After Owen Farrell came Joe Launchbury (height adjustment of the main light required!) then Tom Youngs, Manu Tuilagi and Billy Twelvetrees. Same routine for each.Paul was ingesting and editing the pictures as we went along. Having not encountered the RX1 before, he was initially a bit bemused followed by being quite gobsmacked at the quality of pictures coming out of the little camera. Shooting in fine jpeg as I doubted Paul's laptop had the Sony RAW software, the files from the full frame 24mp sensor were huge at 5200 x 3467 pixels and stunningly detailed. They were phenomenally sharp. Not just a bit sharp, but amazingly super sharp. I only had one out of focus (my fault with the focus/recompose) and the others were spot on. Brilliant.For my last set with Billy Twelvetrees I had to adjust the setup as I'd noticed the sun getting brighter as the clouds cleared a bit, and the background was starting to get lighter and intrude into the shot. As I wanted to stay at f/5.6 I had to leave the shutter speed at 1/1000th (1/2000th with flash sync is only available at f/2), so I moved the position slightly to shoot against a more shaded backdrop. I also adjusted the position of the umbrella a bit so it was slightly feathered and wasn't so full-frontal on the subject, and upped the power of the left fill flash. This resulted in technically the best pictures of the day, as there's a nice rim on the left of Billy, and the falloff of the repositioned umbrella on the right gives better definition to his face.So, all in all an excellent session with the Sony RX1 being put through its paces in a highly pressurised environment when it had to perform. I love the little thing. To turn in results as precise as this in broad daylight on a hotel terrace is very impressive.The rest of the pics from the day are here.