Six Flags Photography Policy

July 7th 2019

I’ve had a few people ask me about one of the more confusing questions for theme park photographers: can I bring my DSLR to Six Flags? In my own personal experience, it’s so frustrating because it’s so inconsistent. For every story you hear about the park giving someone a hard time about carrying a nice camera, you have a story about how someone brought a massive telephoto lens and weren’t turned away.

I personally have experienced both of these: I’ve been told that I can’t take picutres with my Sony a6000 and also have brought my a7III with a reasonable size lens into the park and didn’t get hassled at all. To flesh out the story a little bit: I went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in 2016 with my a6000 with only the stock lens. If any of you don’t know much about the camera, it’s Sony’s first mirrorless camera in the Alpha line, it sold really well and was/is very popular. I was standing in the plaza on the publicly accessible path, not even anywhere hidden, taking some shots of Joker as it flew down its first drop. After happily snapping away for a little bit, a security guard came up to me and told me “you’re not allowed to take pictures”. The subtext of this interaction was “with this camera” since there were people taking pictures on their cell phones around me and he didn’t say anything to them. I didn’t really say anything since I was so shocked being told this so I went inside the park and went to guest services where I was told that I was very much allowed to take pictures as long as I was on a publicly accessible path. So I went back out of the park and took my pictures that I wanted to take. The guard saw me again but this time didn’t say anything. It’s very weird contrasted with my positive experience where I was able to not only bring my DSLR but a telephoto lens and a tripod into SFOT and get some shots.

Since this is such a weird, inconsistent rule, I figured I’d do my research and see if I could get to the bottom of this and share it with you all!

The Official Written Statement

Since every park has its own policy page, each park has a slightly different policy when it comes to photography. Let’s grab a few of the most popular Six Flags parks.

Magic Mountain

Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. All interchangable lens cameras are banned as well as lenses longer than 3/4”. In addition, they mention a little further down that tripods and monopods are banned as well.

Great America

Okay, maybe Six Flags is a little consistent?

Great Adventure

Nope, this is the policy for Great Adventure, they don’t mention anything other than phones on the ride or drone mounted cameras (both of which are incredibly reasonable)

So now that we’ve taken a peek at what the official word is, let’s take a peek at what the unofficial (official-ish) policy is!

The Official Spoken Statement

So this portion comes from my conversation with a guest services employee at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I mentioned that I’d been turned away from other the gate in the past and that I wanted to know what the official word is regarding photography. She gave a call somewhere and ended up telling me that this rule is more legalese than anything else and that as long as you don’t have a massive, obviously professional grade (even if you’re just a hobbyist) lens on your camera, you should be fine.

This answer was more frustrating than anything else to me since it seems to put the entire onus of enforcing the rules on the security staff, who aren’t exactly the most qualified to consistently enforce rules.

My IRL Experience

So now that we’ve talked about what the official word is, let’s talk about my experience with bringing my camera into the park. I started bringing my camera into the park in around 2013 when I started bringing my Nikon d3000 with kit lens and 70-300mm telephoto into Six Flags Over Texas. I never had anyone hassle me with that setup, even when I brought in a tripod a few times.

In 2017 and 2018, I branched out and started hitting more Six Flags parks with a new camera. This setup wa a lot smaller, with only a Sony a6000 with the kit lens. I never had any trouble bringing this into SFFT, SFGAm or SFMM even though it is technically against the rules, being an interchangable lens camera. The only park I ever had trouble with was Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, where I only got stopped once. Otherwise, I never had any trouble taking it into SFDK.

Update 2023 - This mostly remains true. I did get stopped and questioned by security at Great Adventure (funny enough). Once I explained how I just like to take pictures of coasters they let me go and I again confirmed with guest services that it was allowed. I got hassled by a security guard at Sea World San Antonio for my tripod. Once again I went to guest services who told me that I was allowed to use it.

My final kit over the past few years is my current one, a Sony a7III. I brought this to Frontier City (a Six Flags park) and didn’t get stopped even though it is unmistakably a professional grade camera.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, Six Flags is maddingly inconsistent with their policies with cameras. It seems like enforcement of the written rules is heavily dependent on the day and the security staff. In general though, it seems like you’re probably safe to bring your DSLR or mirrorless setup into the park as long as you leave your telephoto lens or any other bigger, professional looking lenses at home!

Have you had any experiences with camera policies at Six Flags parks? Let me know in the comment section below!

Comments

An interesting addition to this post, looks like the Youtuber Coaster Studios ran into something similar at a visit to SFOG: Apparently he was shooting around in the parking lot and got told by security that his APS-C mirrorless camera wasn't allowed to be used, even in the parking lot. He went to security in the park that told him the same thing. After the fact he was able to talk to higher ups in the park who overturned their policy and said that interchangeable lens cameras are allowed.

Ford

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01/10/2021