📝 Words, Interviews & Top Graphic by Farran Golding
Skateboarding found its first industry standard filming rig when the Sony DCR-VX1000 video camera was paired with a Century Optics MK1 fisheye lens in the late 1990s. Fundamental to producing every tentpole skate video throughout the early 2000s, a precedent for skateboarding’s visual language emerged and footage captured through a fisheye lens became the defining trait of skateboarding cinematography.
Eventually, Panasonic HVX and HPX cameras equipped with an Xtreme fisheye succeeded the VX and MK1. Popularized by William Strobeck during the mid-2010s, this change of filming set-up coincided with long lens videography becoming the zeitgeist. Observing the Quartersnacks Top Ten (our closest thing to a longstanding data set) evidences a decline in fisheye use over the past decade.