Camera

Federal Hill residents agree on this: They're tired of a recent spate of petty crimes, holdups and burglaries. They're a bit more divided about the new police camera looming over William and East Montgomery streets, put there to help catch the miscreants. Federal Hill's first surveillance camera is a welcome crime deterrent to some and an irritating eyesore to others. "It's an affront to the people who live here," said Judi Wallace, who has lived a few doors from the intersection for 21 years.

A class action lawsuit challenging Baltimore's red-light-camera tickets, maintaining in part that the timing of traffic signals' yellow lights had been too short and resulted in fraudulent citations, has been dismissed by a city Circuit Court judge. The three plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit in August 2004 contended that the traffic signals in their cases had yellow lights lasting less than 3 seconds. One of the plaintiffs says 4 seconds is the standard. Violations carry a $75 fine but no points.

A PASADENA supermarket has installed a video camera to monitor its parking lot and increase security. Patrons seem to appreciate the move.The Metro Food Market is thought to be the first among Anne Arundel County's 13,000 businesses to install external surveillance. Before it installed a camera at its store in the 8100 block of Ritchie Highway, it put one on the roof of another store, in Millersville.A trend? Perhaps. Officials in Howard County are using cameras to monitor motorists who run red lights, and Baltimore police employ cameras to combat crime downtown.

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.

If you just bought a $1,000 digital camera that takes 3.3 megapixel pictures, you might have thought you had everything you needed to get started with your new hobby. But it doesn't take long to discover that it's too easy to run out of digital "film," and that getting those huge photos from your camera to your computer can be a real headache. Luckily, a trip back to the computer or photo store will turn up some accessories that make life easier - higher-capacity digital film cards for storing your pictures and dedicated digital film readers that plug into your PC and help transfer photographs to your computer.

Armed with point-and-shoot digital cameras, a group of Baltimore teens set out to define love in their lives. The resulting exhibit was displayed at the rotunda in City Hall. The project, sponsored by the Center for Adolescent Health at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health, was designed to teach youths to express themselves through photography. See more photos at www.baltimoresun.com/photovoice.

A hidden Internet camera was discovered Wednesday evening in a unisex restroom at a Ford dealership in Dundalk, Baltimore County police said. The device was found after a female employee reported seeing a green light in the mirror of the restroom at Norris Ford on Merritt Boulevard, police said. Employees later uncovered a hole behind the mirror and what police described as a "Web camera" on the premises. To be operational, the camera would have to be connected to a computer, said Officer Shawn Vinson, a spokesman for county police.

Some of the drivers racing down Montgomery Road in Elkridge craned their necks to gawk. Others whizzed by without taking any notice. But Maryland's first speed-detection camera saw them all. The equipment -- mounted on twin poles at the western edge of the Elkridge Elementary School speed zone -- was activated for testing last week. The device that calculates each passing driver's speed is perched above a flashing school zone sign. A silver digital camera hangs from the other pole. Howard County will not be issuing tickets from the equipment any time soon because state legislation that would allow the use of such equipment as a policing tool does not exist.

Starting today, Howard County will hand out $75 fines to motorists whose cars are caught on camera running red lights.Howard is the first jurisdiction in Maryland to use the much-discussed technology to nab light-runners. But other areas such as Baltimore, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County have expressed interest in starting camera programs.In Howard, two cameras are up and running, at the intersections of Little Patuxent Parkway and Columbia Road, and at Broken Land Parkway and Stevens Forest Road.

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.