Canon Focus and Metering..I finally get it! Sorta.

I know nobody reads this blog yet, but I just had a huge moment in understanding my camera, and someday, maybe this will help another Canon user.
A bit of history...I have been a Nikon user for 10 years. I understand them and I love them, but Canon images are in my opinion simply better. So I made the switch a few months back. I have really been struggling with the transition because everything is opposite..everything turns in the opposite direction and every function on the body is different. What frustrates me most is how I focus and meter for light. I always used spot/center focus and spot metering. I felt Nikon's other metering modes were less reliable (for me anyway).
Nikon...I can press the exposure lock button down to lock exposure and then press shutter half way which locks in focus and recompose the shot. This even worked on moving subjects. Perfect shot every time.
Canon...I just couldn't figure it out. Even with the camera in One Shot mode (and spot metering and center focus), pressing the shutter half way and recomposing would change the exposure. I tried using the exposure lock on the back but I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. I'd have to press it for every picture until the camera "went to sleep" and then it would go off. So I started just using the joystick to change the focus point. This is something totally new to me as I never had to do it on my Nikon. It's a hard adjustment but I'm getting it. I still didn't have the exposure lock thing down and was using the wheel to adjust the exposure accordingly.

Then tonight I read on a forum that a Canon rep told someone that the camera meters for the focus point being used. BS...or so I thought. Then I thought about it some more and tried the camera in Evaluative metering (something I wasn't a fan of with Nikon, or even with the canon originally) and sure enough, it meters on the focus point I am using. Or sort of anyway. It gives that point more consideration, yet still takes into account the rest of the picture to an extent. Cool! And wow what a difference it makes!

So now I am just struggling with Auto Focus with fast moving subjects. Canon doesn't come close to Nikon's AF capabilities. Period. Even so, being new to Canon, I'm hoping over the next few days I will figure that out as well.

New Blog/Site

I've been blogging on a personal blog now for almost a year, but did not have a blog for my photography alone, so here we go! I am new to blogger however, so it might take me a little while to get this all fine tuned. Hang in there with me, and please check back often for updates.
Thanks for visiting!