There is a number of ways to skin this cat. Some build a DNG profile for each scene they shoot. I suspect if you were doing advertising work, had all the time to setup a test and wanted to keep track of multiple profiles per shoot (and the color requirements for certain scenes were super critical), you could go this route. But generally speaking, if you build a DNG profile in Daylight, maybe shade, Fluorescent and then any odd illuminant (metal halide), that one profile will do the job quite well.
In terms of exposure, well you don’t want to blow out highlights or under expose greatly. You want a “good” exposure but its not critical. My suggestion would be to carefully capture (maybe bracket) a target in daylight and full shade, examine them in Lightroom or ACR, pick the one that looks good, convert to DNG and build a profile. Then see how they work for you before you go too crazy with lots of multiple DNG profiles.
You can also build the DNG profiles with the Adobe Labs product and X-Rite Passport software which is free from their web site.
http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1257&action=support
