Auto exposure processing for spherical images improves image quality by reducing visible exposure level variation along a stitch line within a spherical image. An average global luminance value is determined based on auto exposure configurations of first and second image sensors. Delta luminance values are determined for each of the image sensors based on the average global luminance value and a luminance variance between the image sensors. The auto exposure configurations of the image sensors are then updated using the delta luminance values, and the updated auto exposure configurations are used to capture images which are then combined to produce the spherical image. In some cases wherein updating the auto exposure configurations using the delta luminance values would breach a threshold representing a target luminosity for the scene, the use of the delta luminance values may be limited or those values may instead be discarded.