Interesting thread! Used to be a daily SLAP lurker and even posted from time to time, but in recent years i haven't really done both. And since this year i haven't owned a normal "skate-cam" to film and throughout the years just didn't film or had the chance to borrow someones VX1000 for some small video projects (skateshop commercials etc.). I'm certainly not going to go into my personal history with filming skateboarding, but let's just say, that as a young man living in eastern Europe i didn't have the means to buy the VX1000 death lens combo myself. At the time, when i was really active with filming (like 2006-2010) the VX setup would have cost about two months median pay in my country. So understandably that kind of luxury item to film skateboarding wasnt really an option. This year my friend told me he had a camera that he didn't use anymore and offered me to use it. It's a Panasonic GS500 and if i remember correctly from the SkatePerception days, it was a pretty good alternative for the VX. His fisheye was scratched so i got the same one in good condition. It's the Opteka 0.3x ultra fisheye HD 2 (cool name). And to my amazement, it's pretty wide and overall is a pretty good cheap setup if you are new to filming or can't find a good VX. I've been having lots of fun filming skateboarding again and since i am older now and have a reasonable income, i might snab a VX1000 with a death lens for spring 2018. We'll see. The only bad things about this Panasonic is garbage audio and the small zoom button. If you are not used to it, then it will only zoom really slowly or really rapidly.
Even though i'm collecting footage for a longer clip, i've done some smaller trip videos. Here's an example of the camera in action. This clip also has some of my friends VX2100 daytime footage, but i think you can easilly differentiate it from mine: