This is a busy time of year here in Edinburgh. It’s Hogmanay; there are in door parties, outside parties and fireworks. It’s a time of year when gatherings are arranged by social networks and at midnight it’s not unusual to see delays on text messages as mobile operators get swamped.
I like Hogmanay for the photographs. Party pictures are fantastic, firework pictures are always fun and photographers always manage to find interesting shots of the street party in Princess Street or of Edinburgh’s architecture. It’s a challenging time for the photographer though. If you take a camera then that’s an extra thing to carry around and it means you might not get your pictures up online until the next day. If you just use a smartphone then you may well struggle with firework shots or lack a zoom to get into the thick of the action.
I think Samsung’s Galaxy Camera is a really interesting piece of technology. It’s the best of both worlds. Given that it does 4G (where it’s supported) and has Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) you can’t really accuse it of skimping on the digital connection side of the coin. It also has a 21x optical zoom and that’s impressive. Optical zoom, in my opinion, is far greater in quality than digital zoom and smartphones tend to use digital zoom.
Samsung’s ad/introduction video also talks about some of the photo features; tools like Photo Wizard, Buddy Photo Share and Slow Motion video.
Blogmanay is a new twist on Hogmanay this year. The local authorities have invited a gathering of international travel bloggers to spend hogmanay in the city. I expect we’ll see plenty of Facebook, Twitter and blog coverage of the event. Local bloggers can join in via the hashtag #blogmanay.
This evolution of the city’s celebration is part of the changes in media. Loads of people will be keeping up with the parties via their TV but just as many will be tracking the parties and photographs online. They’ll be contributing too. I think techology is evolving too.
Disclaimer: Post sponsored by Samsung, words, blogmanay link and typos are all my own.