I would also take into consideration that being real-world, I believe Corona works better and easier if you enable Photographic Exposure (also disable Simple Exposure). I am an above-average pro-sumer photographer which helps with real-world 3D. If I were to be outside on a bright, sunny day, my camera would be set to 100 ISO, f-13 or higher (darker) and shutter to 1/125 or 1/250.
You could set up a default scene with a camera already set to a typical exposure so when you import a new HDRI, it should be close. I keep saying I'm going to do this, so maybe I'll finally set it up. In fact, you can have an exterior camera with settings for bright and sunny, one for sunset, one for evening, etc. Also a couple set up for interior which may be something like 400 ISO, f-2.8 or lower (brighter) and shutter to 1/60 or 1/30.
There is a way to save that scene to open every time you launch C4D so you're ready to go.
