Rules for shooting at water park?
 

I'm heading to Disney World last week of September and will probably hit at least one water park. I'm also planning on getting a waterproof housing for my cam to use at home and thought about taking it with me there.

Are there any specific legal issues I need to know about? I'd just be filming my kids in the wave pool and such. Disney has very few rules about photography or video in their other parks. We've been 6 times before to DW and never been told we couldn't film or take photos anywhere so I'm not overly concerned but figured I should at least check on it beforehand.

Shouldn't be a problem, Unless you plan on rocking up with an EX3 on a set of heavy sticks with a boom mic, lighting kit, sound crew and catering van. Then they might be a little concerned.

Are you using Pro equipment? Almost everytime I take my equipment on another property (unless I'm getting paid) I have gotten kicked out. But if you just have some consumer stuff it should be fine. I'm still learning the rules as far as the law, so for now I just go with what I feel like. If it's considered public property, you should be fine. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

JS

What do you plan on doing with the footage?

I'm using a Panasonic PV-GS320 or 300. I was looking at the housings from epiccam.com.

It will only be home movies of my 2 boys on vacation.

Normally you can film or photograph almost anything at WDW but in every other place besides a water park everyone is fully clothed. In this day and age you just never know how some people will react. Normally when people see that you're filming your own kids it's not a big deal but I just wanted to make sure that if I'm filming in an enviornment like that I wouldn't have any obvious trouble.

Well, that's two separate questions. As long as WDW permits it, you can legally film anything and anyone. As your only use is as home movies, I don't see any problem.

Will someone will object? A poll taken some years ago showed that a number of people objected to the Bill of Rights, when shown it but not identifying what it was. I wouldn't be surprised if someone did.

Chances are there won't be any problems. In this day and age though being a man with a camera around a bunch of kids you have no idea when someone may get some messed up idea in their head about your intentions. I just wanted to see if there were any issues that you guys may have known about from other similar situations.

Like I said, I'm filming my kids in Disney World where hundreds of people are filming and/or taking photos every day so no one should think anything about me pointing a camera at my family.

I would think you should be fine. DW certainly won't stop you from shooting family vacation stuff and you'd have to be really unlucky if someone else complained.

"Go ask security to call the police. I'll be right here, filming my kids."

If you're not super fussy about the results .. buy a Vado HD cam, or one similar, and a simple water-proof bag. There's one on Ebay for about $9 delivered that fits them fine.

Also real popular with my fellow water-rats are the WP still cams that take SD video. Here's two I have. The Pentax Optio and the Olympus 1030SW ...both available pretty cheap if you buy a year-prior model used. The cam in the bag is a Kodak HD.

http://wetstuff.com/camera/3wetcams.jpg

I hooked a Vado HD to one of my kites last Sunday and got this... Used Vados are perhaps a little over $100...

Low wind test of North Rhino R7-16M kite

Jim

..... you might also not attract unwanted attention with these..