[Ed Tyler]

Badgerwatcher,

Try to avoid photographing woodland scenes on sunny days. The light and dark contrast will play havoc with the camera and metering.

Wait for either an overcast day or until the sun has at least been hidden behind a cloud.

Its always better to underexpose a photo than to overexpose, in post processing you can recover the detail of an underexposed image, but once the detail is lost due to overexposure its gone for ever !!!!!

I agree with posting a few images so we can see the problem and help out a little more.

Personally I'm not so sure if filters will help any, they will slow down the camera to a point where a tripod will be required. Remember a Polarizer will seriously reduce the light entering the camera, and it may not even help the colours depending upon the direction of the light.

Let us know how you get on

Ed