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

Smartphone photography (GSMArena)Tech

Realme phone with OnePlus 16R-like specs leaks, contradicts earlier camera rumor

October 14

It has a built-in cooling fan and an RGB light, but one camera is missing. Earlier today, a leak claimed that the OnePlus 16R is being tested with a triple...

Rumours & leaks news

Read at Smartphone photography (GSMArena) ↗

RumoursTamron to announce a new 16-50mm f/2.8 APS-C lens for Nikon Z-mount Nikon Rumors

ReviewsSirui Swift AF 20mm F2.4 and 40mm F2.2 Leak at About 205g Each: the 20mm Fills a Gap on Sony E and Nikon Z, the 40mm Has Six Lighter Rivals Camera Decision

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Realme phone with OnePlus 16R-like specs leaks, contradicts earlier camera rumor

Related

RumoursTamron to announce a new 16-50mm f/2.8 APS-C lens for Nikon Z-mount Nikon Rumors

ReviewsSirui Swift AF 20mm F2.4 and 40mm F2.2 Leak at About 205g Each: the 20mm Fills a Gap on Sony E and Nikon Z, the 40mm Has Six Lighter Rivals Camera Decision

RumoursHere is an AI generated Sony medium format system photo based on REAL patent designs! Sony Alpha Rumors

RumoursAstrHori KF 8mm f/2.4 medium-format circular fisheye lens for GFX/XCD mount coming soon Photo Rumors

VideoReading a Codec Patent Claim Against Your Own Streaming Stack Streaming Media

RumoursRUMOR: Tamron 16-50mm f/2.8 APS-C lens Coming Tomorrow Fuji Rumors