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

← Hot Shoe Archive

MRashad PhotographyReviews

APS-C Sensors Explained: Why APS-C Cameras Are Still Professional Tools in 2026.

03.14

APS-C sensors gather about 1⅓ stops less light than full frame. Understanding this difference explains crop factor, exposure, and lens perfo

Mirrorless bodies Photography Education Photography Gear Camera Technology Photography & Videography Tips

Read at MRashad Photography ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

APS-C Sensors Explained: Why APS-C Cameras Are Still Professional Tools in 2026.

Related

ReviewsMy Honest Take on the LUMIX S1: The Good, The Okay, and The Undesirably LUMIX S1 Review 2025 MRashad Photography

ReviewsRicoh GR IIIx Review and Comparison with the Sony RX 100 VII | Sample Photos in Miami, Florida! Myles Katherine

MakersIntroducing Twist 28 for Mirrorless Cameras Lensbaby blog

AustraliaIntroducing 35mm Full-Frame Border Scanning! FilmNeverDie

TechSave $500 on the Sony a7 III with 28–70mm lens, a full-frame starter kit that still holds up Digital Trends Photography

ReviewsI'm a cameras editor — here are my top mirrorless cameras from a year of testing Tom's Guide cameras