Banking Notes – Yahoo! India News

RK Kaul to take over as Oriental Insurance chief

RK Kaul, at present the general manager of National Insurance Company, is slated to take over as the head of the state-owned general insurance company Oriental Insurance. Official sources said Kaul will take over the charge of the chairman and managing director of the insurance firm from M Ramadoss, who is moving to state-owned New India Assurance as its chief. Kaul started his career as an officer with the General Insurance Corporation of India in 1977. After a year, he was assigned to the National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL). Oriental Insurance has 26 regional offices and over 900 branches across the country besides, overseas operations in Nepal, Kuwait and Dubai. The company has an overall head count of 15,000 employees.

Max India to sell stake

Max India Ltd said on Tuesday it will sell 9.4% stake in the company to Goldman Sachs Capital Partners for a rupee equivalent of around $115 million on preferential basis. Goldman Sachs Capital Partners is the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs. Max India will issue fully and compulsorily convertible debentures (FCDs) of the face value of Rs 867 to Goldman through its wholly-owned subsidiary Xenok Ltd, Max India informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

One Stop Shop gets RBI nod

The Rs 1,500-crore One Stop Shop (OSS) Group has received the permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for issue and operation of prepaid instruments including cash card, a company statement said. OSS group, engaged in online business is India's first single window operation, where the consumers can place the orders for both the commodities and services. The users can buy the railway tickets and air tickets. Simultaneously, the users can select various take services including mobile recharging, couriers, forex, medical services, bills payment, make PAN cards, insurance, matrimony and even hire legal services, the release said.

Online MF transaction platform

Registrar & transfer agents Karvy Computershare and Computer Age Management Services (CAMS) have launched a web-based platform, Finnet, to help mutual fund distributors provide services in a cost-effective manner by transacting on an integrated system. Finnet facilitates order placement, execution and customer service on an integrated system, the two firms said in a joint press release. “Finnet will help create a strong value proposition among the distributors and eliminate duplicated efforts by distributors as well as investors,” Karvy country head V Ganesh said.

Apollo DKV rechristened

Standalone health insurer Apollo DKV on Tuesday rechristened itself into Apollo Munich Health Insurance, following reorganisation of businesses by its German partner. “The new name is in line with our brand strategy to communicate the deep rooted expertise of the company. Apollo is a household name synonymous with the best quality healthcare and our partner company Munich Health is a true pioneer in the field of global health risk management,” said Apollo Munich Health Insurance CEO Antony Jacob.

Honda Siel, Axis Bank pact

Honda Siel Cars India has announced a channel finance programme in partnership with Axis Bank. As per the memorandum of understanding, the bank has approved a line of credit for financing the dealers of Honda Siel under channel financing of inventory funding for dealer vehicle stocks along with retail financing of auto loans.

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Modern cameras are made to do everything on their own. With a self-timer, a camera can decide when it’s the right moment to freeze time capturing an image. Seriously, today’s cameras are incredibly smart. There has never been a time when getting into photography was so easy, that is assuming you can figure out what all the buttons, knobs, and levers on a new auto-everything camera do.

In some ways, older cameras were less frustrating to work with. New automatic cameras can be a challenge for anyone to figure out. It’s kind of like setting the clock on your DVD player. If you ever take time to learn the steps involved with the process, it’s not difficult. Automatic cameras can be intimidating at first, but they are a joy to use once you have mastered the controls.

The amount of automation found in a pocket camera varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Price is also a factor in the amount of automatic functions a camera performs. I think automatic cameras are like computers; they’re fantastic when they work properly and a pain in the neck when they don’t.

I browsed through a sales flyer from a major discount chain store just a few minutes ago. For less than $100 you can buy a 35-mm point-and-shoot camera from a name-brand manufacturer. The camera has a built-in flash and it sets shutter speed automatically. For about the same price, you can get a different brand of 35-mm camera that offers a pop-up flash (to reduce the red-eye effect in portraits).

In fact, it is hard to find a point-and-shoot (PsS) without a built-in flash. The model I looked at has a medium-power, zoom, telephoto lens. There are even less expensive cameras available.

If you move up the purchase-price ladder, you can find cameras with built-in zoom lenses with ranges in the neighborhood of 38mm to 140mm. Some models will imprint your photos with a date and time stamp. Not many professional photographers use pocket cameras as their primary tools, but I know many who use them for quick shots that would evade typical professional equipment. Don’t be fooled by the Do-Little cameras, they can actually do quite a lot. For most people, any camera with a megapixel rating of at least 5 is fine for routine use.

What Could Go Wrong With Idiot-Proof Cameras?

If you think that nothing can go wrong with auto-everything cameras, you’re wrong. A lot can go wrong with any automatic camera. While most pocket cameras are simple to operate, they can produce some annoying problems for the people who use them. Let me explain.

Imagine that you are on your dream vacation. Part of your fantasy is to amass photographs that will help your memories live forever. You begin your journey, snapping pictures of once-in-a-lifetime scenes as you go. All of a sudden, you battery goes dead. You left your battery charger at home. Well, there goes the great photography outing.

Many photographers using direct-vision cameras obstruct their lenses accidently without knowing it until they check their photos. Since the viewfinder on this type of camera is offset from the lens, you can’t see if your camera strap or finger is in part of your picture.

Spare Battery

One of the most frequent problems with an automatic camera is not the camera’s fault. It is a dead of dying battery. Get a spare battery for your camera and like the credit card company says, “Never leave home without it!” Low battery power can cause a number of difficulties with an automatic camera. A dead battery can put the camera completely out of commission. Rotate batteries frequently when using or storing your camera in cold temperatures.

Red Eye

Even if you have never taken a single photograph, you’ve probably seen the handiwork of the red-eye monster in photos you have seen. This evil creature lives in the flash unit of many cameras. When an on-camera flash is used to take a portrait, it often taints the photography by turning the subject’s eyes bright red. Some pocket cameras offer a red-eye reduction system. Others incorporate a pop-up flash that can help to keep the monster caged. However, unless you move up to component systems where the flash you work with is offset to one side of the lens, you might meet the monster eye to eye, so to speak.

What is red eye? It is when the eyes of a subject are red in a photograph. The problem is caused by having a flash that is too close to your lens. It is a common problem with point-and-shoot cameras.

Auto Focus and Auto Flash

There is a difference between point-and-shoot cameras and auto-focus cameras. Point-and-shoot cameras have a set range in which objects appear to be in focus. Auto-focus lenses adjust their focus based on the location of a subject. As good as auto-focus lenses are, they can be fooled. As an example, if you were to take a family portrait, using a self-timer, you might find that part of your family was soft in terms of focus.

If you were all standing side by side, the auto-focus should work well. But, if some of the family is in front of the rest of the family, the auto-focus is likely to lock in on only some of the subjects. This results in a picture with some distortion in it.

Automatic, built-in flashes sound good on paper and in advertisements, but they can limit your creativity. They can also fail to meet their minimum requirements. The sensors that trigger an automatic flash can be fooled by light patterns. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say that your children have just been chosen to star in a school play. You want to capture the moment with your camera. Hastily, before the mood changes, you position your children in front of a window. There are no blinds or curtains, and natural light is flooding into the room, behind the kids. Quickly, you point and shoot on auto pilot. The flash doesn’t fire. You assume this means flash was not needed. After all, it’s supposed to fire when light levels are low. The natural light behind your children has just fooled the camera. When you review the picture taken, you will find that you have a nice, dark, silhouette of your kids. Their cheerful faces will be hidden in the dark exposure. Creative options for built-in auto-flashes are limited.

Sun Flare

Sun flare can be a nasty problem when using a pocket camera. You can overcome this by shielding the lens of your camera from the sun with your hand. But if you’re not careful, your hand will wind up in the picture. Since lens shades won’t work on flat-faced cameras, you have to protect the lens by some other means. The human hand is usually the most effective. If you don’t prevent stray light from shining on your lens, you will see bright spots that resemble stars or doughnuts on your finished prints.

The more automated your camera is, the higher the risk is that something will malfunction. This should not scare you away from the versatile, easy-to-use pocket cameras. If you stick with a major brand of camera, you should not experience many problems that are not associated with the operator of the tool. Keep fresh batteries in your camera. Use common sense on exposures, and choose your camera settings carefully. If you follow these simple instructions, your little black box should give you good pictures.

About The Author

R. Dodge Woodson is the founder and publisher of World Photographers Organization, a group of photographers from point-and-shoot snapshooters to pros who spend close to $10,000 for a single lens. Photography has been his passion for close to 40 years. Woodson is an internationally-known, best-selling author and photographer with more than 100 books published by major publishers. Presently much of his writing in both E-books known as Book Busters and Ready Reports is available through Creative Consulting, Inc. at http://www.ccionlinesales.com, including his most recent book: Maine Unseen: A Photographic Experience That Few Witness.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 8:44 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.