WaffleIQ Team · October 29, 2025 · 5 min read
The $50 gear list
You need remarkably little to start producing professional product photos:
| Item | Cost | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|
| White foam core boards (×4) | $12 | Art supply store |
| Mini tabletop tripod | $15 | Amazon |
| Bulldog clips (pack) | $5 | Stationery store |
| Sticky putty (to position products) | $3 | Stationery store |
| White contact paper (for surfaces) | $10 | Amazon |
| Total | $45 |
Your phone is the camera. If you have an iPhone 12 or later, or a recent Android flagship, it is more than capable.
Free software and apps
For shooting:
- Adobe Lightroom Mobile (free) — manual camera controls, ProRAW
- Open Camera (Android) — full manual control, free
For background removal:
- Remove.bg — free tier gives 5 free images/month at reduced resolution
- Background Eraser app — manual but free and effective for simple backgrounds
For editing:
- Lightroom Mobile (free tier) — excellent colour correction and batch editing
- Snapseed (free) — healing brush, selective adjustments
- Canva (free tier) — resize, add text, create ad graphics from your photos
For generating lifestyle backgrounds:
- WaffleIQ — takes your clean product photo and generates professional studio or lifestyle backgrounds
What not to spend money on
- Ring lights — not ideal for most products (creates circular reflections)
- Expensive DSLR — your phone is fine until you're at 6-figure revenue
- Backdrop stand — foam core boards and bulldog clips do the same job
- Professional editing software — Lightroom Mobile free tier is sufficient for product photography
Batching your shoots
The biggest hidden cost in product photography is time. Batching solves this:
- Prep all products the day before (clean, steam, arrange)
- Set up your shooting area once and don't move it
- Shoot all products in a single session
- Edit all photos in one Lightroom editing session using sync to apply the same adjustments across all shots
A batched session of 20–30 products typically takes 2–3 hours including editing.
When to upgrade
Upgrade your setup when:
- You're shooting more than 100 products per month (invest in consistent artificial lighting)
- Your current photos are limiting your conversion rate (run an A/B test first to confirm)
- You've scaled to a point where your time is worth more than the cost of a photographer
Until then, a clean window setup and good technique will take you far.
WaffleIQ
Generate studio-quality product photos in 60 seconds
No photographer. No studio. Just results.
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