Instead of counting dollars worth of gear, lets try to estimate how many Terabytes of data are being collected:

Most shooters are using top of line Nikon or Canon bodies, so say 12-16MP, likely shooting RAW format, so let guess file sizes between 15-24 MB, 18MB on average. Shooting in bursts of a dozen or so, several times a minute, let;s say each shooter takes on average 48 shots per minute, throughout the day. I'm sure none of them are being paid hourly wages, so in order to make a dime they are probably working 12 hours a day, half of which (conservatively) is spent behind the viewfinder (except for the guy in the lower left of the picture above)

So on average each shooter is collecting: 18MP*48shots/min.*60min./hr*6hr/day = 311GB/day.

using the 1,100 photographers, that's 342TB of digital images captured every day at the Olympics. I believe there are 19 days of events plus the opening and closing ceremonies, so lets say photographers work every day, that's 7,184TB of images.

MORE THAN 7 Petabytes of photos! And to top it off they are all of pretty much the same thing. Can anyone else see how inefficient photojournalism is at these events? I've always thought it is so redundant when I see groups of photographers standing around shooting the same thing from the same perspective.