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

The-Digital-Picture Canon NewsReviews

In the B&H Deal Zone: Laowa’s 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lenses Drop to $579.00 (RF, EF, E, Other Mounts), More!

10.25

Check out today's B&H Deal Zone for big savings on: Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lens for Sony E — only $579.00 (save $120.00) (17%) Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lens for Canon RF…

Lenses

Read at The-Digital-Picture Canon News ↗

ReviewsHot: Canon USA Refurbished Camera and Lens Sale – RF 100-500 for Only $2,199.00, 15-35 for $1,799.00, 24-105 F4 L for $899.00, More! The-Digital-Picture Canon News

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

In the B&H Deal Zone: Laowa’s 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lenses Drop to $579.00 (RF, EF, E, Other Mounts), More!

Related

ReviewsHot: Canon USA Refurbished Camera and Lens Sale – RF 100-500 for Only $2,199.00, 15-35 for $1,799.00, 24-105 F4 L for $899.00, More! The-Digital-Picture Canon News

ReviewsJust Announced: Sigma 50mm F1.4 CL DG Contemporary Lens The-Digital-Picture Canon News

ReviewsJust Announced: Sigma FP2 Camera The-Digital-Picture Canon News

ReviewsGet 10% Back on Canon Cameras, Lenses, and More with the Amazon Prime Card Bonus Offer! The-Digital-Picture Canon News

ReviewsFirst Looks at Sony FE 600mm F6.3 GM OSS Lens Image Quality The-Digital-Picture Canon News

ReviewsFirst Looks at Sigma 50-120mm F2.8 DC OS Contemporary Lens Image Quality The-Digital-Picture Canon News