Hobolite Iris review: the Creator Kit is complete lighting system made miniature

An always-on LED (compared to a burst of on-camera flash) can make a huge difference to your creative work - especially in relation to videography. You can use an LED to add modeling light to a subject that emphasizes the contours of their face or simply reveal more detail in a low-light location. An LED can also complement existing light sources using adjustable color temperature settings or change mood using creative color gel effects. Check out our LED recommendations in these Buying Guides -   https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/the-best-led-light-panels and https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/best-led-light-sticks-and-light-wands-for-photography. 

This is not my first rodeo when it comes to testing an LED from Hobolite. At the top of the Hobolite range in relation to power output is the 300W Hobolite Pro, which emits up to an eye-blinding 30000 lumens (Lm). One lumen is roughly the strength of a flickering candle illuminating a subject at a distance of 1 foot. Next in line is the Hobolite Avant, which is a 100W-powered LED that can emit up to 8500 lumens. The 20W Hobolite Mini can emit an impressive 1600 lumens.  Then we have the smaller and appropriately named Hobolite Micro, a pocket sized 8W LED.  

At the bottom end of the range in terms of size and power comes the newest LED in the Hobolite range - the Hobolite Iris. As as a 5W powered LED it emits up to 300 lumens, which doesn’t sound like much in comparison with its siblings, but that’s still the equivalent of 300 candles - which is more than enough to add a key or fill light to a portrait, especially in a low-light scenario. And due to the low wattage the light doesn’t get too hot so there’s no need for a built-in fan (and therefore no fan noise to spoil a take). 

Hobolite Iris: Specifications

Price and Availability

You can buy the Hobolite Iris plus the Frosted Dome and the Adjustable Lens. However for more creative control and more colourful emissions we recommend purchasing the Creator Kit with its gels and additional modifiers. The Hobolite Creator Kit is available for around $199/£199.

Purchase the Hobolite Iris on its own (without the Creator Kit accessories for $99/£99.

Build and handling

Hobolite put a lot of thought into the design of their LEDs and this is attention to detail is also evident in the Creator Kit’s box. As a regular reviewer for Digital Camera World I open up a lot of packages, often not knowing what’s inside. When I opened the Hobolite’s packaging I was surprised to discover a box covered in intricate patterns and I was instantly reminded of the Lament Configuration box from the Hellraiser movies! Fortunately, the Creator Kit’s ornate box didn’t possess any demon-summoning properties - but thanks to its contents, it did enable it to produce a host of creative lighting effects – as you’ll see in our supporting video in the Performance section below. 

The most distinctive thing about the Hobolite range is the beautiful retro design of each lamp, and the Hobolite Iris shares the same head-turning appearance of a curved light grey aluminum chassis adorned by brown faux-leather panels. Indeed when I tweeted a picture of myself testing the Hobolite Iris mounted on a Rode Phone Cage a follower asked me to identify the gadget, as the Iris looked more like a vintage camera than it did an LED. This was due to its boxy shape, with a circular lens on the front. 

In the photo I’d mounted the magnetically attached Aperture Ring accessory to the Iris. This accessory looks and behaves in a similar way to a traditional camera’s aperture, and you can open and close it to adjust the spread of light emitting from the LED. No wonder it was confused for a camera (though a camera’s aperture isn’t stuck in front of its lens of course). The other lighting modifiers in the kit stick to the front of the LED body like lenses being attached to a camera, but unlike traditional lenses these modifiers are attached magnetically, which makes it a quick and easy job to swap them around. 

With the Creator Kit version, Hobolite has gone to town in relation to magnetic accessories. As well as the adjustable Aperture Ring mentioned above you can magnetically attach a Frosted Dome to the light. This acts as a mini soft box that diffuses the light and creates less harsh (and therefore more flattering) shadows on a subject’s face. There’s also a Fresnel Lens attachment that boosts the brightness of the LED by 3x at close range, plus a magnetic Adjustable Lens. This can boost brightness by 6x and also adjusts the beam angle from 20 to 45 degrees. Lastly we have what looks like a glass door knob - the Magic Lens. While I was showing off the Creator Kit to a colleague we both stuck our nose up at the Magic Lens as it looked too odd and gimmicky. However, once we’d popped the Magic Lens onto the Hobolite and taken it into a dark room, it quickly lived up to its name - as I’ll explain in the Performance section of this review.

As the Hobolite is a bi-color light it emits light in degrees Kelvin - from a warm 2700K to a much cooler 6500K. However you can’t change the colour hue emitted by the light like you can with the SmallRig RM120 RGB LED. To overcome its bi-color limitations, the Hobolite Iris Creator Kit ships with four Gel Filters that can be slid into a slot behind the lens to change its color (and, therefore, the mood of the lighting).  The Gels are called Aurora (evoking the graduated pink to blue hues of a winter sky), Blue Hour (for cooler tones), Golden Hour (does what it says on the tin!) and Spring Pastel (graduated cyan to pink). You can combine the gels with a combination of the kit’s magnetic optical modifiers to produce a wide range of creative looks.

On top of the Iris is an On/Off button. On the rear of Iris’s small body is a dial that you can rotate to adjust the intensity and color temperature. You can see the properties that you’ve dialed in on the color LCD via a san-serif font that is reminiscent of stylish 1960s typography. The dial also acts as a button that lets you change the colour temperature in increments, as well as triggering animated lighting effects for more creative video work.

Performance

Video (above): Watch me unbox and demonstrate the Hobolite Iris

To test the Hobolite Iris I took it to France to film my brother and his restored WW2 Willies Jeep attending the D-Day celebrations. I mounted it on the Rode Phone Cage via the thread at the bottom of the light. At 0.35lb, the light’s weight was negligible, yet it was strong enough to illuminate my subject in low-light locations (such as in a hotel’s interior).  As well as being a practical fill light for location work the Hobolite Creator Kit acts as a springboard to creativity. I really enjoyed the fact that I could add the optical modifiers to the Hobolite Iris in a modular way thanks to their magnetic nature. I could pop on the Adjustable Lens and then attach the Frosted Dome to diffuse the light. By sliding in a gel I could produce an even more creative look. Gels can also enhance the Hobolite Iris’s animated video effects. For example, the flickering produced by the Flame effect is enhanced with the warm colors produced by the Aurora Gel. 

My colleague Phil Richardson and I initially dismissed the faceted glass Magic Lens that ships with the Creator Kit as a gimmick. However, once we popped the Magic Lens onto the Iris and took the LED into a dark room, we were rather surprised and impressed. The faceted glass created beautiful abstract patterns that added texture to the scene. By adding gels and triggering the LED’s animated effects we could produce psychedelic animated patterns that would creatively enhance a video shoot. The patterns were even more distinctive if you rotated the light and moved it back and forth - check out the supporting video to see it in action (and thanks to colleague Phil Richardson for his moves!).  We learned that the Hobolite Creator kit and its accessories and animated effects certainly fuel creative experimentation! 

Verdict

We loved the Hobolite Iris Creator Kit because it inspired us to get creative. The combination of colored gels and a host of magnetic optical modifiers enabled us to add colors and textures to portraits or create psychedelic effects for artistic video sequences. 

Animated effects (such as Flame or Firework) can also be used to enhance video drama sequences. If you need a very portable but creatively modifiable LED for your stills or clips then the Hobolite Iris comes highly recommended, despite its low 5W power output.

Alternatives

Zhiyun Molus X60

If you need a portable LED that packs more power than the 5W Hobolite Iris then check out our review of the battery-powered Molus X60 and its sibling the Molus X60 RGB. Both 60W LEDs have two control dials, though the X60 RGB can produce a much wider range of creative colors (and animated lighting effects) than the Molus X60. The X60 LEDs are the perfect accessories for adding key and fill lighting to portraits on location.

Hobolite Micro Creator Kit

If you’re attracted to the Hobolite Iris’s retro looks but are worried that it’s too weak at 5W, then take a look at the 8W Hobolite Micro. This will give you 500 Lm instead of the Iris’s 300 Lm, though the stronger output means that this LED needs a cooling fan that can emit noise during a shoot. The Micro also boasts 8 animated lighting preset effects, and like its supplied Frosted Dome, the five Gels attach magnetically to change the color of the LED’s output.