A fisheye lens is a type of lens that increases the angle of viewing. Which means you can see a lot more in the picture with a fisheye lens than a regular lens. This is very important when filming skateboarding. While a fisheye lens is not needed 100% of the filming. It is needed when a filmer needs to get close to the skater when filming the skater’s line. A line is a series of tricks done one after the other so for example a skater might start with a kickflip onto a 50-50 ledge 180 out. A fisheye lens will allow the filmer to get nice and close to the skater while he/she is skating their line and capture the obstacle plus the ride away as well:

As you can see here Cyril Jackson is frontside flipping this bank gap. A fisheye lens is used here and it is obvious because of the wide angle of viewing and the “circle” like edges. As I mentioned before because of the fisheye lens you are able to see the skater’s trick, the whole obstacle, and the ride away at the bottom of the frame.

Now that I’ve told you what a fisheye lens is, IN GREAT DETAIL I’ll now show you posers your options. If you buy a Canon DSLR your options are fisheye lenses that will start from $700+ to $1000+.

If you buy a Nikon DSLR your options for a fisheye lens are just as expensive :(.

BUT THERE IS A HOPE! Theres no need to wallow in misery. Instead of a dedicated lens you can buy a screw mount lens which screws on top such as the Opteka Fisheye Lens. It screws right on top of the lens thats already mounted onto the camera.

The red circle is the fisheye attachment screw on lens and the green circle is a dedicated lens to the camera.