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

Fotocult (IT)Italy

Canon Speedlite EL-5 (Ver. 2): portata wireless estesa e maggiore flessibilità per il sistema Eos R

September 20

Più raggio d'azione e massima velocità operativa: come cambia lo Speedlite con batteria al litio dedicato ai fotografi che scattano con una Eos R. L'articolo Canon Speedlite EL-5 (Ver.

Lighting & rigs FOCUS Canon Canon Eos R Canon Speedlite

Read at Fotocult (IT) ↗

One letter a week, in your inbox.

Latest

Canon Speedlite EL-5 (Ver. 2): portata wireless estesa e maggiore flessibilità per il sistema Eos R

Related

CinemaCartoni HyperRoll Explained – Skate Wheels for Any Camera Cage, NATO Rail Mounting, Lockable Wheel Angles CineD

ReviewsGodox C100 review: A novelty camera that works better as a light meter DPReview

ReviewsWhy Your First Tripod Spot Is Almost Never the Right One Fstoppers

ReviewsDJI Osmo Pocket 3 Alternatives: Its Top Rival Is a Sony Mirrorless Camera, Not Another Gimbal Camera Decision

CinemaIBC 2026 Overview & Best-of-Show Winners | iPhone 18 Pro Gets a Variable Aperture | Teradek Bolt 7 – Focus Check ep134 CineD

ReviewsThese are the best camera bags for photographers to buy in 2026 Amateur Photographer