Automatic Exposure, a new RLG-led initiative, seeks to minimize the cost of technical metadata acquisition and maximize the cultural heritage community's ability to ensure long-term access to digital assets. The project pursues a two-fold inquiry: it engages manufacturers of high-end scanners and digital cameras in a dialog about how their products can automatically capture technical metadata and make it available for transfer into digital repositories and asset management systems. Furthermore, it identifies existing or emerging technologies for harvesting technical metadata developed at individual institutions or by the industry, and explores how those tools could be leveraged to serve the entire community. The goal of the initiative is to lower the barrier for institutions to capture the data elements proposed by NISO Z39.87-2002 (AIIM 20-2002): Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images [Draft Standard for Trial Use]. NISO Z39.87 defines a standard, comprehensive set of data elements key to an institution's ability to manage and preserve its digital images.