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

TechRadar CamerasTech

Best Buy has a flash sale on its best-selling TVs, and it feels like Black Friday — record-low prices on top-rated 4K, QLED, and OLED TVs

September 27

Best Buy has launched a 48-hour sale, which ends tonight at Midnight. While the retailer has deals across its site, the best deals, in my opinion, are on its best-selling TVs.

Video & streaming Lighting & rigs

Read at TechRadar Cameras ↗

ReviewsVanguard's Pro 2N1 Strap allows two cameras to be mounted at once, can be used as a single shoulder sling, and features Arca-Swiss compatibility Digital Camera World

One letter a week, in your inbox.

Latest

Best Buy has a flash sale on its best-selling TVs, and it feels like Black Friday — record-low prices on top-rated 4K, QLED, and OLED TVs

Related

ReviewsSmallRig’s New Super-Soft Video Light Unfolds In 15 Seconds PetaPixel

RumoursInsta360 launches Luna Pro gimbal camera co-engineered with Leica Photo Rumors

TechReolink OMVI 3i reviewpanoramic views and 4K tracking in one smart camera TechRadar Cameras

RumoursWeekly Nikon news flash #905 Nikon Rumors

ReviewsVanguard's Pro 2N1 Strap allows two cameras to be mounted at once, can be used as a single shoulder sling, and features Arca-Swiss compatibility Digital Camera World

ReviewsWe Review the DJI Osmo 360 II: A Refinement From the Previous Generation and Proof They Listen. Fstoppers