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

British CinematographerCinema

Glasgow Film Festival reveals first titles for 2027 edition, new venue partner and international pitching opportunity

11.06

Glasgow Film Festival has announced the first films for its 2027 edition, taking place from 24 February to 7 March.

Exhibitions & books

Read at British Cinematographer ↗

Also covered by: Animation World Network

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Glasgow Film Festival reveals first titles for 2027 edition, new venue partner and international pitching opportunity

Related

CinemaEuropean Award Season 2027 “brings European cinema to audiences across Europe and beyond” British Cinematographer

CinemaUK Music Video Awards 2026 winners announced – including for cinematography British Cinematographer

CinemaEvolution Mallorca International Film Festival announces 2026 awards winners – including for cinematography British Cinematographer

CinemaBFI London Film Festival announces LFF Audience Award winners British Cinematographer

CinemaDiane Kruger and Edward Berger honoured at 15th Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival British Cinematographer

FranceArras Film Festival 2026 : explorer la richesse des cinémas européens Le Bleu du Miroir