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

Animation MagazineVFX

Patrick Stewart, Star of ‘Star Trek,’ ‘X-Men’ and Iconic Voice Roles, Dies Age 86

10.29

Celebrated English actor and pop culture icon Patrick Stewart died Wednesday, October 28. According to spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak, the well-known star of Shakespearean theater and the blockbuster…

Read at Animation Magazine ↗

Also covered by: Animation World Network, No Film School

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Patrick Stewart, Star of ‘Star Trek,’ ‘X-Men’ and Iconic Voice Roles, Dies Age 86

More from Animation Magazine on Hot Shoe

VFXNetflix’s ‘Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2’ Lends Anime Flair to New ‘High Forever’ MV Animation Magazine

VFXEmile Awards Announce 2026 European Animation Winners Animation Magazine

VFX‘Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend’ Anime Feature Sets NorAm Release with Crunchyroll Animation Magazine

VFX‘PAW Patrol’ Will Return to the Big Screen in a Fourth Furbulous Feature Animation Magazine

VFX‘Made in Abyss’ Movie Series Reveals New KV, Cast & Pt. 2 in Production Animation Magazine

VFXFandango Unveils November Streaming Slate with Animated Exclusives Animation Magazine