Camera

From a desk full of monitors in the basement of the Baltimore County courthouse, Lt. Tony Chambers watched one recent morning as lawyers argued a case, people got on and off the elevators, and an incarcerated defendant preened and danced in a holding cell. Then, using a device similar to a video game joystick, he panned across several blocks in Towson that surround the courthouse, zooming in on buildings and license plates of individual cars. "It's an amazing system," Chambers said of the security surveillance cameras recently installed in the five-story Circuit Court building.

There are few sights sadder than a kid with a new robot, truck, talking doll or hand-held poker game that won't play because Mom, Dad or Grandma forgot one simple thing: the batteries. Sadly, millions of youngsters will be disappointed Christmas morning by this or some other glitch that makes electronic gift-giving a source of parental peril as well as pleasure. But whether it's a battery-powered toy, a computer, a camera or a new high-def TV, there's still time to make sure it works when the family unwraps it - and you'll spend your day enjoying the gift instead of debugging it. First things first.

Later. That is the inevitable reply when I ask the kids to take out the trash, clean up their rooms or, while on vacation, pose for a family picture. They are so loath to pose that it's become a family joke. "This is so annoying," says 16-year-old Melanie, as she rolls her eyes. "This is taking too long," her brother, Matt, adds. In frustration, I've been known to stamp my ski boots in the snow or refuse to walk another step. What will I promise, they say, laughing, to get them to stop what they're doing long enough to get that perfect holiday-card shot -- on top of a ski mountain, clustered around a giant turtle in the Galapagos Islands, or on the boat they're sailing in the British Virgin Islands?

To me, there's nothing more relaxing than hitting the road and visiting a world-famous scenic attraction - until someone you don't know suddenly thrusts his camera in your hands and asks you to take a picture. This happened about a dozen times to my wife and me on a recent trip to Niagara Falls. "How was the Falls?" people asked when we got back. I said we weren't sure because we spent most of the time taking pictures for other people. On the day we visited, the place was packed with tourists from all over the world: England, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, you name it. Which only ratchets up the pressure vis-a-vis picture-taking for strangers.

People passing through 14th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington on Sept. 30 had no idea that the world's first private spy camera was orbiting 400 miles overhead. But the spacecraft snapped a picture of the intersection sharp enough to show their cars, surrounding buildings, monuments and city bustle.Inaugurating a new commercial era, Space Imaging Inc., the private company in Thornton, Colo., that built the spacecraft, made the photograph public yesterday. It is the world's first commercial image from space whose sharpness rivals those of military spies in the sky.The release caps many years of planning, delay and debate.

It's not every day that you come across a 23-year-old pioneer. We tend to think of people who break down barriers as being a lot older and with a lot less enthusiasm for the task than Jennifer Kraska.But though Kraska, who starts today as weekend sports producer at channels 45 and 54, doesn't really consider herself a trailblazer, the Dulaney High graduate is, as best as can be determined, the first female sports producer at a Baltimore network affiliate station."I don't even think about it anymore," Kraska said.

Capt. Glenn C. Resnick of the Pikesville Volunteer Fire Company flips open a small suitcase with the thermal-imaging camera inside. The bitter scent of a burning building rises from it, testimony to the camera's frequent use."This is the difference between life and death right here," he says. "We feel it's revolutionary."What he's holding hardly looks revolutionary -- it could almost be mistaken for a household flashlight -- but Resnick and his company say it's changing the way they fight fires.

Backward-compatible Sony Digital 8 offers innovations at fair costPeriodically, a piece of technology comes along that's so intelligently designed, so innovative and reasonably priced, that you want to pinch yourself. Such is the case with Sony's new DCR-TRV310 Digital 8 camera ($1,099).One of the main selling features of the Digital 8 line is that it's backward compatible with existing 8mm and Hi8 technology. That means you can play your old 8 and Hi8 tapes on the new machine. Digital 8 cameras can even use the same type of 8/Hi8 tape as the old cameras (which is much less expensive than DV or MiniDV media)

With the use of soda can-sized cameras installed next to rearview mirrors, Baltimore Police might begin taping exchanges between themselves and suspected criminals as soon as this spring.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday he is moving to have 150 patrols cars equipped with video surveillance over the next several months. Mayor-elect Martin O'Malley has embraced the plan.ID Control, based in Derry, N.H., demonstrated its surveillance camera for Schmoke yesterday outside City Hall, with equipment installed in a Ford Explorer.

Article was misleading about red-light programI am writing in response to Larry Carson's article ("Camera is not always candid," Nov. 7) about Howard County's red-light camera enforcement program.The article missed the focus of our program and was misleading about what constitutes a red-light violation.Our program is designed to save lives and reduce the number of collisions that occur as a result of red-light running. The program is working. The law has always said that you must not enter an intersection when facing a red traffic signal.

Timothy Dicke works all day doing maintenance and other jobs around Baltimore and then goes out all night with his camera, shooting up to 2,000 photos each week of Maryland scenes lit by a phosphorescent glow. Thirty of the very best are the subject of a one-man show, the artist's first, running through Nov. 7 at Creative Alliance. There are companion shots of the Domino Sugars plant - the cheery front, in which the familiar, red and yellow sign and the lights from the office building are reflected in the nearly motionless waters of the Inner Harbor, and a moody photo of the rear, in which a lilac wall contrasts with the rest of the shadowed edifice.

Name: : Joby Gorillapod flexible tripod (original) What it is: : This plastic tripod has a clip that screws into a digital camera for easy locking between camera and tripod. But to call this a tripod is almost misleading. It's a kind of plastic "creature" whose legs can wrap around railings, chair backs, table legs - your imagination is the only limit. It's perfect for leveling your camera on uneven surfaces or, as I said, attaching in places where a regular tripod wouldn't have a chance.

It's a breezy morning in eastern Annapolis. Sea gulls squawk overhead. Boats bob beside a dock. And on the deck of a tied-up charter vessel, two folk musicians in ball caps strum a shuffle on a banjo and ukelele, looking every inch the easy-living Jimmy Buffetts of the Chesapeake. It's the final day of shooting for "Seize the Bay," the latest creation from Daphne Glover and Bob Ferrier, filmmakers from Severna Park, and as the two roll videotape, neither one can suppress a smile. "Fantastic," says Ferrier, the director, clapping his hands as the music ends.

What Maryland thinks : The Baltimore Police Department plans to install a surveillance camera in a bar on Oliver Street linked to drug dealing and violence. Should the city place cameras inside private businesses as a crime-fighting tool? Yes 45% No 51% Not sure 4% (847 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : The Supreme Court has signaled that it may do away with long-standing restrictions on corporate funding of campaigns. Should corporations and unions be free to contribute directly to candidates?

Lamont Davis, the 17-year-old arrested and charged as an adult in the shooting of a 5-year-old girl last month, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Tuesday as his public defender released closed-circuit camera footage of the incident that he believes could help exonerate his client. The video was recorded July 2 from an unmanned and constantly rotating camera perched at a Southwest Baltimore intersection. The camera, during a brief pause, captures the incident as it unfolds. A man in a black shirt, cap and khaki shorts can be seen running up to a group of people and firing at another man as the others scatter.

The world was able to share in the excitement of Neil Armstrong's "one small step for man" on July 20, 1969, thanks to the steps made by many on Earth, including Marylanders who played a part in the historic event. Stanley Lebar When Neil Armstrong descended the ladder from the lunar module, Stanley Lebar, a Westinghouse Electric Corp. engineer, was watching in a small lab at Mission Control in Houston. The historic images he and the rest of the world saw were thanks to a camera he had helped build.

At 11 p.m., a police surveillance camera zoomed in on Eutaw Street, packed with cars and people heading home from an Orioles game. A few minutes later, another camera focused on Saratoga Street as a dispatcher sent cops to a report that "five or six people are outside the location fighting." Within the next half-hour on live video beamed into the Citiwatch command center on Howard Street: Someone was assaulted at Penn and Pratt streets; an undercover cop searched a suspect at Paca and Mulberry; a dispatcher called out "an assault in progress" on West Lanvale.

With hours to go before a crucial first deadline for activists seeking to overturn Maryland's new speed-camera law, volunteers are mounting a last-minute drive for signatures at supermarkets, Metro stations and community parades. On Saturday morning, Albert Nalley and five others fanned out through Arbutus and found what they said is an "undercurrent" of anger among residents who view the new law as a "money grab" by a state government with a "spending problem." "They fully understand the meaning of this legislation," said Nalley, a 58-year-old Catonsville resident.

A former Republican congressional candidate from Montgomery County is leading an effort to overturn by referendum Maryland's new speed-camera legislation. Daniel F. Zubairi, a Bethesda businessman, has formed Maryland for Responsible Enforcement and notified the state elections board that the group will try to collect the more than 53,000 signatures required to put the question to voters in a coming election. Zubairi said he intends to build a nonpartisan coalition that focuses on the largest counties but reaches across the state, noting that some Democrats crossed the aisle to oppose the Gov. Martin O'Malley-backed speed camera bill in the General Assembly.

It was like a reward challenge: Endure a chilly, drizzly night in the elements and be among the first to try out for the reality television show Survivor. "If we can hack that, we can hack Survivor, absolutely," said Casey Starshine, who waited 14 hours with her 9-year-old son, Uriah. More than a dozen hardy souls did the same, huddling overnight under an open-sided tent at a Catonsville car dealership before Saturday morning's casting call. By day's end, more than 400 would-be contestants filed into Antwerpen Hyundai, where WJZ-TV set up two cameras.