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

New Atlas PhotographyTech

Review: Akaso 360, the budget alternative for the action cam beginner

05.09

Looking for an action cam that can take fish-eye 360° shots but don't have a lot of cash to splash? One option is the Akaso 360 Action Camera aimed at the budget-conscious beginner.

Drones & action Reviews

Read at New Atlas Photography ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Review: Akaso 360, the budget alternative for the action cam beginner

Related

ReviewsI tested DJI’s new Osmo Pocket 4 — this is the only tool I'll recommend to content creators from now on Tom's Guide cameras

ReviewsI've spent two years testing 300 cameras, earbuds, drones, keyboards and more — here are my favorites from each category Tom's Guide cameras

DronesSkyrover S1 Review: 4K Mini Drone Under 250 Grams Halfchrome

DronesVeenix V11 Mini 4K Drone Review – Compact, Capable, & Under 250g Halfchrome

DronesThe US$83 Billion Potential: The Drone Market is Set to Nearly Double by 2035 Drone Industry Insights

ReviewsThypoch KSANA 21mm f3.5 Review & Sample Photos Alik Griffin