Mastering EI Monitoring on the Sony Venice: A Simple Fix You Might Have Missed

If you’ve ever struggled with monitoring changes to the Exposure Index (EI) on the Venice, you’re not alone. I recently found myself facing an issue when using off-base EIs—anything other than the native 500 (low base) or 2500 (high base). The challenge? The EI changes weren’t reflected in my monitor, making it difficult to judge exposure properly, especially on 3rd part monitors using tolls such as EL Zone exposure or False Colour.

Custom LUTs

At first, my workaround was to create custom LUTs that compensated for different EIs. For example, if I wanted to rate the camera at 1000, I would load a LUT that effectively overexposed by one stop. This could trick the monitor into showing an accurate preview of how my exposure would look, while still delivering a singal S-Log3 that the monitor is expecting.

This was a complex solution, requiring multiple LUTs and constant management. My goal was simple: ensure my EL exposure tool—a feature I rely on—could still function correctly by receiving a consistent log signal.

Leveraging SDI Routing

The Venice has a built-in capability that makes this entire process much easier. If you go into the SDI routing menu, you’ll find the option to control the output settings for SDI 3 and 4. Normally, the temptation is to leave these outputs in log, but here’s the key: you can actually set them to output a look instead.

Within this menu, you’ll find the option to apply an S709 LUT, but more importantly, you can also output SGamut3.cine in S-Log3. While this might seem like it would behave exactly the same as the log output on SDI 1 and 2, there’s an important difference - once this is set, changing the EI in-camera now visibly affects the monitor output. That means your false color and exposure tools will respond dynamically to EI changes, just as they would in the camera’s viewfinder when using an S709 LUT.

Why This Matters

By using SDI 3 and 4 in this way, you no longer need to rely on custom LUTs to preview different EIs. The camera handles it natively, giving you an accurate real-time reference without extra steps. This revelation has completely streamlined my workflow, and I wish I had known about it sooner.

If you’ve been manually managing LUTs to simulate EI changes or given up on the idea you can export EI changes over SDI then give this method a try. It’s a simple setting adjustment that saves time and ensures that your monitoring setup accurately reflects your exposure decisions.

Hope this tip helps—let me know if you’ve used this trick before or if you have any other Venice workflow hacks!