Camera

Talk to Kati Marton about Peter Jennings and she will tell you that there is something very odd about her famous husband: When he stares into a television camera, he becomes what he is not. "Which is dead calm," says Marton, a former WCAU-TV reporter (1973-77) and former ABC News bureau chief in Bonn. "When the light goes on, he switches everything off. " She shakes her head in affectionate bewilderment. What you see on television, she says, is quite simply not the same man she bumps into puttering in the kitchen, not the same man who wanders around their Long Island weekend retreat puffing imported Export A cigarettes and wondering if he can sneak off for a little ice-boating.

Imagine you're 50 feet under the surface in the warm waters of the Red Sea when suddenly you come face to face with a spectacular blue and yellow ribbon eel. OK, so maybe that's not a challenge most amateur photographers encounter frequently. But for serious divers, taking pictures underwater is part of the fun - and demands special equipment. For them Nikon has introduced the Nikonos RS, which it says is the first underwater single-lens reflex camera. Previously, divers who wanted to take professional-quality pictures had to buy expensive housing systems to protect their equipment from the corrosive effects of saltwater.

Gov. Whitman made a colossal blunder four years ago when she frisked a suspect during a ride-along with New Jersey State Police in Camden - and grinned while doing it. What was she thinking? She was there to learn first-hand about the challenges to law enforcement in Camden. She was along as an observer, not a participant. She had no business "playing cop," searching a man whom police already had checked and were ready to release. Her mistake, however, doesn't make her the "poster woman for racial profiling," as overheated critics are contending.

Places like the Grand Canyon or the Washington Monument - or any big-city skyline - pose a major quandary for the typical photographer-traveler who carries only a standard camera lens or a point-and-shoot: They're too big to fit into the frame. Kodak and Fuji have brought the problem into focus, though. Their solution is a "disposable" panoramic camera that's inexpensive, easy to use, and satisfies the amateur's longing for a wide-angle lens. These simple point-and-shoot cameras are preloaded with a 12-exposure roll of film.

Smile! The "snapshot" will be 100 years old a week from today. George Eastman received patent number 3888850 on Sept. 1, 1888. The Kodak, so named because "Ko-dak" was the approximate sound the shutter made, reduced the previously complex process of making photographs to "three motions" - pull a string to cock the shutter, push the button to make the exposure, turn the key to advance the film - making photography simple and available to the...

Rumors flew before last night's game that major-league umpires had threatened to boycott the game unless CBS agreed not to use its overhead camera to review pitches crossing home plate. Representatives for Major League Baseball, for the umpires and for CBS all said no such threat had been made. But umpires did convey their unhappiness with the overhead camera after Game 1 on Saturday night. "The umpires requested they don't use the camera because of the distorted view," said Richie Phillips, head of the umpires' union.

One night after an overhanging camera in right field caused the first use of instant replay in postseason history, Fox and Major League Baseball decided to move the camera back so it would not interfere with play. "We took a look at it," said Dan Bell, a Fox spokesman. "It was an easy decision to move it back slightly. " During Game 3, the camera hung about 10 inches over the right field wall, adjacent to the foul pole. In the fourth inning, Alex Rodriguez hit a ball off the camera and it was originally called a double because the ball fell back into play.

A photographer trying to shoot pictures in cold weather faces not only the photographic challenges but the effect of weather on equipment. Cameras do not function especially well in prolonged cold. Batteries fail, film becomes brittle and the simple act of loading or unloading film can be an ordeal. When you take a warm camera outdoors in a snowstorm, snowflakes hitting the camera will melt, and as the camera gets cold, the melted snowflakes will freeze, leaving particles of ice on a lens or a filter.

A part-time cartooning instructor at the Perkins Center for the Arts was arrested yesterday and charged with attempted child endangerment and tampering with physical evidence after a concealed video camera was discovered in a second-floor bathroom of the center. Joseph E. Sheets, 36, of Pennsauken, was arrested after being questioned. He was released on a $10,000 bond. He could not be reached for comment yesterday. Police said that a man whom they idenified as Sheets can be seen on tape arranging the camera in the unisex bathroom.

No bumps. No bruises. No scratches. That word came yesterday from Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal, who crashed into and, in effect, tackled a TV camera Wednesday night while trying to catch a popup near the far end of the Phillies' dugout. The camera fell on top of Lieberthal, and he became entangled in cables and the tripod supporting the camera. "Everything's fine," Lieberthal said, while watching replays of the wild scene on the clubhouse TV. "That was kind of fun. I'll probably do it again.