How to take product photos for social media with your phone

You don't need a studio. Good product photos for social media come from controlled light and a clean set-up, and most of the kit costs little or nothing.

If you shoot often, a folding light tent or a pair of daylight-balanced lamps lets you shoot after dark. Start with the window, and add kit once you know what's missing.

• A phone with a clean lens.
• A window with indirect daylight, not harsh direct sun.
• A plain backdrop: a sheet of paper or card that curves from the table up the wall, a wooden board or a tiled surface.
• A sheet of white card or foam board to bounce light into shadows.
• Something to keep the phone still: a small tripod or a stack of books.
• Clips, tape or putty to hold products in position.
• A soft cloth to remove dust and fingerprints from the product.

Light decides more about a product photo than the phone does. Soft, directional daylight shows texture and shape without harsh shadows.

Overcast days are easier than sunny ones, because cloud softens the light. On bright days, move the table a little away from the window.

1. Set your table next to a window, so light comes from the side of the product.
2. Turn off overhead and lamp lights. Mixing warm bulbs with daylight gives uneven colours.
3. If the sun is shining directly in, hang a white sheet or baking paper over the window to soften it.
4. Hold white card on the side opposite the window to lift the shadows. Move it closer for brighter shadows.
5. For shiny products such as jewellery or bottles, watch for reflections and move the card or the product until they're clean.
6. Shoot at the same time of day for each batch, so a range of products looks consistent.

Your phone's camera app has a few tools that make product photos noticeably better. On iPhone, Apple's user guide describes these:

• Grid and level: turn them on in Settings, then Camera, to straighten shots and line products up.
• Focus and exposure: tap where you want the focus, then drag up or down beside the focus area to brighten or darken.
• AE/AF Lock: touch and hold the focus area until AE/AF Lock appears, so focus and brightness stay put while you take a run of shots.
• Portrait mode: keeps the subject sharp and blurs the background, and works with objects as well as people. A Depth control adjusts the blur.
• Flash: switch it off for product shots. Window light looks more natural.
• Zoom: move the phone closer rather than pinching to zoom, or tap one of the zoom options your phone offers, which Apple lists as .5x, 1x, 2x and others depending on model.

Sources: Apple Support: Use iPhone camera tools to set up your shot, checked 15 October 2026; Apple Support: Take portraits with your iPhone camera, checked 15 October 2026; Apple Support: Record a video with your iPhone camera, checked 15 October 2026

Take a set rather than one photo. A set gives you a month of posts, a carousel and images for your website from one sitting.

Leave space around the product and shoot some vertical and some horizontal frames, so you can crop for feeds, stories and your website without reshooting.

Styling should help the buyer imagine the product in their life, without hiding what it actually looks like. Keep props in your brand colours, and fewer than you think.

• Food and drink: shoot soon after it's made, add one sign of real life such as crumbs or a hand, and shoot from the angle that shows it best (above for flat dishes, the side for layers).
• Jewellery: a plain dark or light background, a close detail shot, and one shot on a hand or neck for scale.
• Clothing: on a person where you can, otherwise flat or on a hanger against a clean wall, with a close-up of fabric.
• Beauty and skincare: the product, a texture swatch, and the product in a bathroom or dressing-table setting.
• Homeware and candles: in a room setting, with natural light and one or two supporting items.
• Handmade products: include a shot of the making, such as hands, tools or the workbench. It explains the price.
• Products with variants: shoot every colour in the same position and light, so customers can compare them fairly.

Edit to fix, not to change. Straighten, crop, and adjust brightness and white balance so the product looks as it does in person. A product that arrives looking different from its photo disappoints the customer and invites returns.

Size for the platform. Instagram's help centre says it keeps photos at their original resolution when they're between 320 and 1080 pixels wide with an aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 3:4, and crops other ratios to fit. So shoot with room around the product, then crop to a portrait shape for the feed.

Add alt text that describes the product, colour and setting, so people using screen readers know what you're selling. Instagram replaces its automatic alt text with yours when you add it under Accessibility before sharing, and you can edit it after posting.

1. Pick the best few shots of each product; delete near-duplicates.
2. Straighten and crop each one using the grid.
3. Correct brightness and white balance against the real product.
4. Apply the same edit to every photo from the same set-up, so they look like a set.
5. Export a portrait crop for the feed and a vertical crop for stories.
6. Name files by product and shot, such as 'oak-candle-hero', and write alt text as you schedule.

Sources: Instagram Help Centre: Image resolution of photos you share on Instagram, checked 15 October 2026; Instagram Help Centre: Edit the alternative text for a post on Instagram, checked 15 October 2026

Here's a hypothetical one-hour shoot for a small candle maker launching three new scents. The aim: enough images for a launch carousel, a week of feed posts and stories, and the shop listings.

1. Ten minutes: set the table by the window, curve a sheet of off-white card behind it, clip white card opposite the window.
2. Fifteen minutes: hero shots of each candle, straight on and at an angle, with AE/AF Lock set so all three match.
3. Ten minutes: details of the label, wax and wick, plus one candle lit in a darker corner.
4. Ten minutes: a scale shot of each candle in a hand, and a group shot of all three.
5. Fifteen minutes: in-use shots on a bedside table and a bathroom shelf, and a flat lay with matches and dried flowers.

• The result: a few dozen usable images with the same light and colour throughout, enough for a launch carousel, a week of feed posts and stories, and three shop listings.

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