There's the Baltimore defense, of course; there's N'Sync (at least according to my daughter, Kennetra, who loved the half-time show); and there's digital photography.

If Super Bowl XXXIV last year in Atlanta proved the reliability of digital cameras, this year's big game in Tampa turned out to be the year of the digital photo editor.

With last year's focus on the equipment on the field, photo departments learned valuable lessons about the need for detailed planning to acquire, download, and edit the thousands of images produced by those cameras.

This year, many news organizations came prepared with just that kind of plan, and it paid off.

I've been fortunate to get a close-up view of these developments at both events as a freelancer: with a digital camera in my hands last year shooting for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and this year in Tampa sitting at a Mac G3 editing images (about 2,000 of them) for Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

KRT photo director Harry Walker described the mission: Receive the portable media cards from the runners, copy the images locally onto hard drives in the trailer, wipe the cards clean, return the disk to the photographer via the runner, and then edit for the strongest images.

We were seven editors supporting about 15 photographers who were documenting the game of the year. Tribune Company's acquisition last year of Times Mirror Corp. meant that a paper with a very big stake in this game--the Baltimore Sun--would be part of the KRT operation.

As we scrambled to keep up with the onslaught of images coming at us, Hamilton quipped: "OK, next year when the Ravens do this again, we will bring six editors and two photographers."

Some snapshots and comments from the scene:

The Stakes: Allyn DiVito, senior editor for photography at the Tampa Tribune: "Clearly, the nation's greatest sporting event was going to be a poster child for digital photography. If we wanted our best work in print, we had to go all digital.

Remote Transmission: Both local papers, the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times, extended their companyies' Ethernet (Wide Area Networks to their photo trailers in the lot outside Raymond James Stadium. Photo editors worked as if they were in one of their paper's remote bureaus, dropping images on the server to be handled on their everyday network.

Customized Software: Applied Graphics Technology--(AGT). Eric Meskauskas, director of photography at the New York Daily News, said his team of five, headed by editor/photographer Bill Trumbull, moved 298 images directly to editors in New York. They used Applied Graphics Technology (AGT). "Because the game was over in the first quarter, we needed to see a lot of images," Meskauskas said in a telephone interview from New York. "This time there was no one great emotional image or picture that summed up the whole game."

Graphic Strides: The major technical innovation was the CBS-Eye Vision system for instant replays. This 30 camera, 360-degree computer imaging system is a showstopper and will revolutionize the way the NFL handles challenges to calls by officials on the field.

Graphics From the Field: The New York Times sent a sports graphics editor, Joe Ward, to accompany the travelling photo team. Joe was on hand to produce advance and daily graphics for the paper. "This has been a super experience," he said. "I have never had such independence. All too often, the graphics editor relies on the reporter who doesn't ask the kind of questions that I want asked for the kind of information that I need. Here I can have the dialogue with the subjects, I can ask a guy to draw plays, and act out moves." Joe brought two tools along with him that are not often found in photo trailers: his VCR and his printer.

Team Editing: The Associated Press and the St. Pete Times both made progress on this front. The AP created four color-coded teams, each team comprised of four photographers and two picture editors. One editor had the role of image selection and managed the technical process of color correcting and writing the initial caption. "This allowed us to work in as near to normal a bureau set-up as possible," explained Brian Horton, the AP's senior editor for photography. The AP got this process started last year in Atlanta. Said Reggie Lewis, one of AP's New York-based photo editors (and a Poynter graduate): "Several of us have been to Poynter and the teambuilding approach does work for us."

Marketing Coup: Did you notice the Ravens players holding up those Tampa Tribune headlines (Ravens Win) right after the game ended? With a photograph of the opening kick-off as the dominant element on the page, the Tribune printed 5,000 copies declaring the Ravens the winners and, just in case, 5,000 with Giants on top. A photo messenger (runner) made sure the right bundle made it to the field. No word on just what will become of those 5,000 copies with the other guys winning.

Film Not Yet Dead: The vast majority of the estimated 300 photographers on hand were shooting digital. But the world's premier showcase for sports photography, Sports Illustrated, stuck with color negative film that it then mounted in 35 mm slide mounts for viewing purposes. The magazine shot 454 rolls exposed at 800 ASA pushed one and a half stops to 2000 ASA. "Maybe we will not cover the game this way next year," said Steve Fine, SI's director of photography . "If the next generation of digital cameras are all that they are being cracked up to be, maybe." The SI team of five editors, 11 photographers, and a production team handled 430 rolls of slide film. AllSport, the photo agency, included some color negative film in its mix.

Best Trailer Set-ups: Hats off to Jack Rowland and Jennifer Davis of the St. Pete Times and to the AP. Not only did they both have first-class, state-of-the-art G4 dual processing units with signage, they had good food and super team spirit. Their editors made sure that people in their trailers had fun. (Disclosure note: The Poynter Institute, where I work, owns the St. Petersburg Times.)

Trailer Food: St. Pete's Big Tim's BBQ was a hit. The baked bean, ribs, and slaw did not last long. Karen Jennings of The Orlando Sentinel did question the wisdom of serving beans to so many people in such tight quarters.

Streamlining the Messenger System: Rather than wait for editors to remove images from the portable media cards (each with a capacity of 64 to 128 MGs) to be redistributed to photographers on the field, Jack Rowland of the St. Pete Times came up with the idea of equipping each photographer with 20 cards--enough for as many as 2,000 images each.

Main Lesson Learned: Plan and be patient with editing of digital images. "Each frame is hard to see on the laptops," said Pancho Bernasconi of The New York Times. "Be thoughtful and patient. Sometimes the photographer has the image that you are looking and hoping for, but [in aquiring the image from the card] the sequence gets mixed-up. Take a few seconds to look closely."