Japan-inspired

8 stories

Fuji RumorsRumoursExhibition of the “GFX Challenge Grant Program 2025” at T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL TOKYO Exhibition of the “GFX Challenge Grant Program 2025” at T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL TOKYO Dates: October 16 (Fri) – October 26 (Mon), 2026 (Open throughout the day) Venue: KYOBASHI EDOGRAND 1F Galleria…

September 17

Digital Camera WorldReviewsBokeh Face: Nikon drops out of 'Big Three' in Japan! Who joins Canon and Sony? Data from Japan puts Nikon out of the ‘Big Three’. Plus, two new Sigma lenses, and buying a camera from overseas: Is it ever really worth it?

September 18

Digital Camera WorldReviewsThe No.1 top-traded zoom lens in Japan is "probably the best 70-200mm zoom in the world. Ever." Recently discontinued, it accounts for the most purchases among zooms reaching up to 200mm in 2026 so far Praised for its extraordinary sharpness, this 70-200mm f/2.8 is topping Minna Camera's trade zoom lens charts in the first half of 2026, with 200mm at the long…

September 18

DroneXLDronesJapan's $110M Global Hawk Drone Crashes on Undisclosed Mission Japan's first RQ-4B Global Hawk loss: the $110M drone crashed off Tottori three minutes after its link failed. The ASDF won't say what it was doing.

September 16

Pentax RumorsRumours2025 DSLR camera shipment ranking (Pentax at #3 spot with 10,000 units) Here is the 2025 DSLR camera shipment ranking taken from the latest edition of the Japan Company Handbook Industry Map 2027 Edition Canon: 580,000 units Nikon: 60,000 units Pentax: 10,000 units…

September 4

Kosmo FotoFilmJapan’s film shooters seem to be shooting less, but film sales are holding steady A new survey of Japanese film photographers has found film usage in Japan is holding steady despite recent price increases – and Fujifilm is losing ground to its famed American rival.

August 23

ApertureCultureAn Odyssey Across the Japanese Archipelago For ten years, Ishikawa Naoki traveled among the country's numerous islands, documenting scenes of everyday life and ceremonial traditions found on the margins.

August 13

Japan Camera HunterFilmCamera Geekery: Kodak Aerochrome cameras Kodak Aerochrome cameras: Building My Own Medium-Format Cameras By David Last year I met David when he joined one of my tours here in Japan.

March 16

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