I’m in this odd duality as a photographer and as a journalist. For over 12 years, I’ve been deemed legally blind/low vision. This means that I don’t rely on my eyesight as much as other photographers and humans do — and instead I tap into all the other very important things. With overall image quality across various products being the same, I muse on aesthetics, ergonomics, tactile experiences, sound, etc. It’s the difference between the iconic sound of the Harvey Davidson motorcycle and a Kawasaki. We can all agree that the former is a far more romantic product. That’s what Hobolite is — and the new Hobolite Avant Max taps into that in a way that I never thought that I’d experience.
Before I go on, I believe in stating some hard journalistic truths. The Phoblographer currently has an advertising deal signed with Hobolite — but it isn’t at all affecting our coverage and reviews. You can see more about this in our policies. We’ve worked to return products back to Hobolite instead of keeping them.
Now that you’re aware of our transparency, let’s be even more transparent here. I don’t think that you’d buy the Hobolite Avant Max for the lighting output. For what it’s worth, I’m a photographer who started out with constant lights and then dove deep into the fountains of off-camera flash. Constant lighting allows you to look while flash allows you to see. For the non-poetic, that means that constant lighting simply lets you capture a moment that you and your camera can look at. But on the other hand, off-camera flash creates a moment that isn’t visible with the human eye at all. To really make an LED work effectively for artistic photography, you’d need to use a long shutter speed of some sort. And in the end, isn’t that the point of art? Isn’t it supposed to be human expression that can’t be produced by artificial intelligence?
This is a way for me to say that I wish that the Hobolite Avant Max were actually a flash or a strobe of some sort. I say this from a place of love as I’m deeply adorative of so many things about it. There’s a leatherette, a V-mount battery pack, dials that feel nice and click aesthetically, and a simple interface. Frankly, the Hobolite Avant Max feels like an LED was stuck into a Hasselblad 500 series camera body. That means that you get stuff like satisfying clicks from the snappier parts like the light modifier mount, the battery, etc. Plus, there are magnets involved for extra security.
Setting up the Hobolite Avant Max is a process akin to using a film-based or certain DSLR-style medium format camera of some sort. Like so many of those cameras, there is a back, a body, a lens, and a viewfinder, along with various accessories. This light has a body as the base with knobs, dials, buttons, etc. It’s where the light modifiers and the power packs join. You can attach a battery or a pack of some sort. The latter lets you connect the body to either USB-C or DC power inputs.
Then you’ve got a combo magnet/click mount. You can attach a Hobolite lens, gels, barn doors, and modifiers to this. And that’s how you’ll shape the light. This also is where one of my largest complaints is: there is no umbrella mount on the light. Instead, it’s built into the handle that comes with the light — and said umbrella mount is very loose for the standard Westcott umbrellas I use. That means that at just the right angle, it could slip right out.
As a photographer for over 20 years, I’ll state with honesty that I don’t find there to be much romance to the art of making images when using LEDs. Instead, I think they’re a simple way for creators to say that they can make images for an algorithm instead of working to create images that are part of their legacy. It’s the equivalent of getting all dressed up for a date that you know will be just like all the rest. With that said, I don’t think that Hobolite’s products allow you to treat the photo-making process with reverence.
Where I did, however, find it very useful, was with shooting film. On visiting a friend and his mother, I took my Polaroid 185 as my companion and photographed them using the Avant Max. With its much stronger illumination than the standard lighting in the kitchen, I was able to make two great photographs of them. They loved the images, and photographing them brought me great joy.
In this way, I lit them exactly how I would when using most lights. With a Profoto light, I often don’t need a light modifier. But with the Hobolite Avant Max, I bounced the light output off of a ceiling or off of a window and through white curtains. This way, I was able to make the lighting that I am typically known for. And it worked — but I still needed to really raise the ISO on my camera to get the results I’d expect from a strobe.
With all this said, the Hobolite Avant Max isn’t a light that I feel I need in my life. I’m very intentional with the word “need.” Profoto makes incredible lights that help me do things that I couldn’t do before and in a portable package that just works. The Elinchom 3 comes close to this. For many years, I loved the Paul C Buff Einstein lights — though the brand has disappointed as of late. While Hobolite is making the most aesthetically pleasing lights, they’re lacking on performance — and that’s what I feel they really need to improve on because they’re doing everything else better than all the other brands out there.
We’ve giving the Hobolite Avant Max four out of five stars. Want one? Check them out on Amazon. If you shoot film, perhaps it might be easier to work with.
