Hot Shoe

A camera hot shoe is a metal bracket on the top of a camera that allows various accessories to be attached, such as external flashes, microphones, and other equipment. These accessories typically have a matching “foot” that slides into the hot shoe and makes a secure connection for communication and power transfer. They are used to connect flash guns, flash triggers, microphones (although the connections are usually not used and the microphone uses a microphone port), digital viewfinder, etc.