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Hot Shoe

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On the calendar

· Trade shows and launch events, this week's stories from each corner of the industry, and what its press is covering.

On view

This week, from that corner the newest stories from the corner of the industry you picked

The wire their own posts, translated

How pictures get made in 2026 from the industry's own reports

Sources

Fetched every six hours, linked to the original

About

The small bracket on top of every camera, from a phone rig to an ARRI.

The hot shoe is where the flash goes, and the microphone, and the monitor, and whatever the next decade bolts on. Every camera has one and nobody photographs it. This magazine is named after it because that is where the whole business meets: the body, the glass, the light, the sound, and the person holding it.

I shot news in Gothenburg for nine years and documentary for hire after that, then stopped taking assignments to write about the tools. Since 2021 I live in Tokyo, ten minutes from the used-camera shops of Shinjuku, which is not an accident: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Ricoh and Sigma make almost everything worth pointing at a subject, and their own press writes about it first, in Japanese. So this magazine reads it there, and in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and in English from the reviewers who actually put a card in the slot — around eighty sources and thirty channels, counted and plotted so you can see what is moving.

Bodies and lenses, cinema cameras and drones, film and the darkroom, firmware and the software that finishes the picture, the rumours before the launch and the reviews after it, and the photographers and shows the rest of it is for. I test what I write about on a job before a word goes down. I shoot film on Sundays and do not think that makes me interesting.

A story here is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link to whoever reported it. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the photographer or the maker. A story written in Japanese appears in Japanese, as its author set it down; the link goes to the original.

— Mara Lindqvist, Tokyo

GUIDE · CHOOSE THE TOOL

Which camera for what

Phone, compact, system camera, cinema camera, action camera, drone, instant or film: what each one is built for, and when it is the wrong choice.

Phone

Good for: Always with you; software does much of the work.
Not for: Small sensor, little control over depth of field.

System camera

Good for: Interchangeable lenses and a large sensor: the default for serious stills and much video.
Not for: Bigger, heavier, costs more with each lens.

Cinema camera

Good for: RAW or log recording, timecode, pro audio inputs and cooling for long takes.
Not for: Needs a rig, a crew and post-production.

Action camera

Good for: Tiny, very wide, waterproof or housed, mounts on a helmet, a bike or a board.
Not for: Weak in low light, little control of focus.

Drone

Good for: A camera in the air, steadied by a gimbal; the view nobody else has.
Not for: Rules on where you may fly; short battery life.

Film camera

Good for: A fixed number of frames and a negative you can hold.
Not for: Every frame costs money; no screen to check.

Instant

Good for: A print in the hand a minute later.
Not for: Fixed lens, expensive film, one copy.

Compact

Good for: A large-sensor compact fits a pocket and beats a phone in low light.
Not for: One lens; less reach than a system.

The job decides

BEST FITWORKSWRONG TOOL

THE JOB	PHONE	SYSTEM	CINEMA	ACTION	DRONE	FILM	INSTANT
Holiday snaps	Best fit	Best fit	Wrong tool	Works	Works	Works	Works
Wedding	Wrong tool	Best fit	Works	Wrong tool	Works	Works	Works
Sport from the stands	Wrong tool	Best fit	Works	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Wrong tool
Mountain bike from the handlebars	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Best fit	Works	Wrong tool	Wrong tool
Short film	Works	Best fit	Best fit	Works	Works	Wrong tool	Wrong tool
Landscape from above	Wrong tool	Works	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Best fit	Wrong tool	Wrong tool
Party, prints for guests	Works	Works	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Best fit
Street, slowly	Works	Best fit	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Wrong tool	Best fit	Works