Super Bowl XXXVII will mark a new era in photographic history as two major magazines go completely digital for their coverage of the big event.
Not only will the Tampa Bay Buccaneers be competing in their first Super Bowl, but Sports Illustrated will cover the world's most watched sporting event with, "100 percent digital coverage," according to SI Director of Photography Steve Fine.
Sporting News Director of Graphics Fred Barnes said Saturday night that his magazine, also an historic holdout, would be entirely digital as well, which means there will be no film processing at the Super Bowl this year.
A rather surreal scene will unfold as the giants of sports photography enter the field of play with an arsenal of Canon EOS 1Ds and a few Nikon D1Xs.
For the past four years, other media companies zoomed forward using complete digital cameras with wireless transmission and such, but SI held out for the sake of quality and some of the highest image standards on the planet. Come this Super Sunday, legendary photographers Heinz Kluetmeier, Walter Iooss Jr., Peter Read Miller, and John Iacono will take the field and usher the photographic community completely into the 21st century.
Contra Costa Times/Jose Carlos Fajardo
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jameel Cook, #43, takes a tour of Qualcomm Stadium and stops to videotape (L-R) Orange County Register photographer Michael Goulding and Reuters photographer Brian Snyder as they photograph him.
SI has set the standards for photographic image quality for years now. Newspaper and magazine editors have consistently said, "When SI goes digital, then I will be a believer," an executive editor told me recently.
Well, now is the time. Over 3,500 journalists, photographers and television crews have been credentialed for Sunday's Super Bowl XXXVII between the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers and nearly all of them will be inside of San Diego's Qualcomm Field to witness this momentous occasion.
The eyes of photographers, picture editors, imaging technicians and production supervisors around the world will gaze as the 12 SI photogs make history this Sunday, January 26, before an estimated worldwide audience of 800 million.
Many have wondered way SI took so long to plunge into the digital arena. According to Fine, who will lead the 12 photographers and two picture editor operation in San Diego, "This is the year because everything has changed." SI has always stated that the magazine's deadlines have afforded them more luxury with time than the wires and daily publications have.
"Everything changed with the introduction of the Nikon D-1X and the Canon EOS 1Ds cameras. The improved file sizes and frames per second rates (motor drives) have made them a force to be reckoned with. We are especially pleased with the EOS 1Ds performance in low light, fast action events," said Fine in a cell phone interview before leaving New York on Thursday night.
The 1Ds are an effective and affordable replacement for the high quality, larger negative format Hasselblad system often used in remote camera positions.
Jimmy Colton, SI senior picture editor, (found relaxing in Delray Beach at Fotofusion Festival) will be on the receiving end Sunday in New York.
"The quality is so much better than pushing film," Colton says. "The difference now is night and day. There is no grain structure, unless you go to massive blow-ups. We have no problem putting digital images on covers and double trucks. From where we were five years ago, this year is a quantum leap."
Colton's advice to the industry: "I THINK WE ARE HERE and NOW IS THE TIME! You have got to learn everything that you can about this technology, but the tool is ever-changing. You have to keep up.
"They (photo-editors) look at this (digital photography) as if it is a monster," Colton says. "Make friends with this monster, it is great to have a friend like this."
