The wide tonality of colors visible in an autumn foliage scene can play havoc with your digital camera's default metering. Taking metering settings on dark brown or bright yellow leaves may underexpose or overexpose your pictures. To help, if your digital camera supports different metering modes, try matrix metering, or use spot-metering on neutral colors in-between the extremely bright or dark leaves.

Turn on your histogram feature, if available. If the lines are weighted too far towards the left, your photo may be too dark; a focus on the right will create photos too light. Unless you're trying to create a special effect, aim for as even as possible distribution across the spectrum.

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