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

Digital Camera WorldReviews

Is this the future of Micro Four Thirds? New sensor technology could deliver more than 17 stops of dynamic range

10.28

For years, Micro Four Thirds cameras have been fighting an uphill battle against larger full-frame and APS-C sensors, particularly when it comes to dynamic range and low-light performance.

Mirrorless bodies

Read at Digital Camera World ↗

ReviewsThe Fujifilm X100VI’s viral popularity stems from its retro, compact design, but the feature I’m most jealous of is the unusual viewfinder Digital Camera World

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Is this the future of Micro Four Thirds? New sensor technology could deliver more than 17 stops of dynamic range

Related

ReviewsThe Fujifilm X100VI’s viral popularity stems from its retro, compact design, but the feature I’m most jealous of is the unusual viewfinder Digital Camera World

ReviewsSome of the best-value mirrorless cameras from Canon just got cheaper Digital Camera World

ReviewsOM-5 Mark II Firmware 1.1 Is Its First Update, and It Is a Stability Fix Only Camera Decision

ReviewsWe highly recommend this ‘all-rounder’ full frame camera – and it’s the cheapest it’s been for ages Amateur Photographer

TechThe Amazon Echo Studio's new camera can check on your dog or tell you how to play 'Monopoly' Engadget Cameras

RumoursFirst images of the new 7artisans 71g AF 10mm f/4 pancake APS-C E lens Sony Alpha Rumors