Frequently asked
questions

A pop-up studio platform. A real photographer shoots on a real camera, tethered by USB to a laptop. Guests scan one QR sign while they queue, check in on their phone, and get a five-character code. The operator scans that code at the front of the line, shoots, and taps Done. The photos develop and email themselves in about a minute, as a link to a personal photo page.

No. A photo booth is an unattended machine: guests step in, press a button, and a fixed camera behind glass fires. PopStudio is the opposite arrangement. A photographer stands there with their own camera, lens and lighting, and directs the shot. What PopStudio replaces is not the camera, it is the clipboard, the email spreadsheet and the week-long wait afterwards.

If you want printed strips, a curtain and a box of props, hire a booth. We say so plainly on the comparison page.

A camera that tethers over USB, a laptop, the USB cable, and one printed QR sign for the queue. Internet at the venue is useful but not required, because the app keeps working offline and sends when the connection returns.

Yes. The camera tethers to a laptop over USB and the laptop runs the capture app. This is a genuine requirement, not a preference. If you want something that runs on a phone alone, PopStudio is not it.

Plug the camera into the laptop, open the app, open the event, and put the QR sign where the queue forms. There is no rigging, no enclosure and no printer to load, so setup is closer to setting up a camera than to installing a machine.

Yes. The free test drive runs the entire loop with your own camera and your own team, up to 15 guests and 60 photos. It is deliberately event-shaped but too small to run a real night, and its output carries a PopStudio watermark.

Canon, Nikon and Sony bodies that support USB tethering. If your camera can shoot tethered to a computer over USB, it is the right kind of camera for this.

Model-by-model setup lives in the camera guides.

The USB cable that matches your camera body at one end and your laptop at the other. Use a proper data cable, not a charge-only one, and keep a spare in the bag. A failed cable is the most boring way to lose an event.

No. That side is entirely yours. PopStudio does not touch how you light or frame a portrait, and it has no opinion about your lens. It handles what happens after the shutter.

Yes. Multiple stations share one live queue, so two photographers work from the same list of checked-in guests without colliding. The Event plan includes 2 device seats, Large event 4, and Studio 4.

No. Photos develop automatically and send themselves. There is no editing step between the shutter and the guest. If you are a photographer who wants to grade your own files, that is a job for after the event with your usual tools.

Keep a card in the camera as you normally would. Tethering sends the file to the laptop; your card is the belt to that pair of braces, and it costs you nothing to have both.

Yes. You can shoot the whole event offline. Captures queue on the laptop and send themselves when the connection comes back. Church halls, school gyms and market tents are exactly the places this was built for.

That depends on you, not on us, and we are not going to invent a number. Your shooting pace and how long you spend with each group set the rate. What PopStudio removes is the admin around the shot: no writing down names, no collecting emails on paper, no sorting files afterwards.

They can check in on someone else’s phone — a friend’s, or a spare device at the desk — using their own name and email. The code is what matters at the station, not the phone it appeared on. They can also write the five characters down and show them.

Then nothing happens, and that is the design. Check-in is the opt-in. Someone who does not scan the sign is never in the system, is never matched to anything, and never receives an email. There is no crowd scan running in the background that could catch them anyway.

One live queue, shared. A guest checks in once and can be called forward at whichever station is free. Both operators see the same list update as people are shot and marked done.

Paid plans warn at 80% and keep going, billing any overage afterwards. They do not stop. The one exception is the free test drive, which stops at its cap by design — it exists to prove the product works, not to run a real night.

Yes. The operator app shows the live queue, what has been shot, and what has sent. It is the same view a second operator sees on another station.

About a minute after the shot, in normal conditions. The guest gets an email with a link to their own photo page. Offline events are the exception: those send when the venue connection returns.

An email with a link to a personal photo page holding their photos, plus a delete button for them to use whenever they want. Not an attachment, and not a shared gallery of the whole event.

You do. You shot them. PopStudio is the delivery system, not the rights holder. We do not licence, resell, sublicense or train anything on your photos. Guests get the photos they appear in, on the terms you set with them.

Default retention is 30 days, and you can set 7, 30, 90 or 365 days to match your own policy. A job runs daily and deletes anything past its date. After that a guest’s photo page reads "Photos expired".

Yes, from a button on their own photo page, at any time, without asking anyone. Deleting removes the stored files. A group photo is the one nuance: it survives until the last person in it deletes it, because it belongs to all of them.

On the Studio plan, yes — original files are offered on the guest photo page. Event and Large event plans deliver the developed version. The free test drive delivers watermarked output.

Check the spam folder first, then re-send from the event dashboard. Since the address was typed by the guest at check-in, the usual cause is a typo, which you can correct and re-send.

No, and we never will. There is no facial recognition, no faceprint, no biometric template and no age estimation anywhere in PopStudio. Guests are matched to their photos by the five-character code they were given at check-in.

The full position is on the privacy page.

That is your decision as the organiser, not ours. PopStudio never asks anyone their age and has no separate path for young people — every guest gives a name and an email, and their photos go to that address. If your safeguarding policy or the law where you operate requires a parent’s permission before you photograph a young person, obtaining it is your job, done your way, before the event. What we can promise is that nobody is photographed unless they chose to check in, nothing biometric is collected, photos go only to the address that guest typed, and every delivery email has a delete button.

A parent who wants the photos in their own inbox can simply use their own email address at check-in. The Terms of Service set out who is responsible for what.

You are. Your organisation is the one collecting the personal information and taking the photographs; PopStudio processes it solely as your agent, on your instructions. That includes any consent your own policies or local law require, including for minors. We do not collect consent on your behalf, and no setting in the product substitutes for it.

This is written down, not implied — see the Terms of Service.

Name, email address, the five-character check-in code, the photos themselves, and timestamps for check-in, capture and delivery. That is the complete list. There is no age question and no field about anyone else. Guest data is never sold.

Not because of PopStudio. The Code covers automated biometric processing such as facial recognition, and it imposes privacy impact assessments, proportionality testing and explicit notice on the operators who do it. Existing deployments must comply by 3 August 2026. PopStudio performs no biometric processing, so it sits outside the Code.

This is information, not legal advice. The Code itself is published by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner: read it here.

Biometric data is sensitive information under the Privacy Act and requires consent to collect. Since PopStudio collects none, that question does not arise. The OAIC is also developing a Children’s Online Privacy Code, due to be registered by December 2026, which treats under-15s as unable to consent for themselves — that one sits with you as the organiser, because you are the party collecting the information and taking the photographs. Again: information, not legal advice.

No. Guest data is never sold or rented, and there are no advertising or analytics trackers on the guest photo page. The data exists to deliver photos to the person who asked for them.

On Cloudflare R2, encrypted in transit and at rest. PopStudio is operated by System Advance Limited, a New Zealand company.

Yes — send them the privacy page. It was written to be read cold by someone with no other context, and to answer the questions a board actually asks. If they come back with a harder one, send it to us.

Privacy position · Ask us directly

Event is US$50 for one event of up to 400 guests. Large event is US$75 for up to 2000 guests. Studio is US$249 a year for unlimited events. All prices are NZD and exclude GST.

Full detail on the pricing page.

One event is one occasion you create in the dashboard — one night, one market day, one wedding — with its own QR sign, its own guest list and its own caps. Running two stations at the same occasion is still one event. A second night the following week is a second event.

The test drive stops at its cap: 15 guests, 60 photos, 30 emails. It is the only plan that hard-stops, and that is on purpose — it is there to prove the loop works with your own camera, not to run a real night. Nothing already delivered is taken away. To keep going, buy an event plan and the caps lift.

Per event. Caps are copied onto the event when you create it, so a later price or plan change never rewrites an event you already paid for.

You get a warning at 80% and the event keeps running. Overage is billed afterwards. A queue of people at 8pm is not the moment to discover a billing edge, so paid plans never stop mid-event.

From your 5th event in a year. Studio is US$249 a year against US$50 per event, and it also raises retention to 90 days and offers original camera files to guests.

No. All prices are in New Zealand dollars and exclude GST.