AE-L Locked

Hi all i was thinking about different AE-L settings for my landscapes at the moment the camera k10/k20 is set to -

AE-L with AF locked set to off(custom function number 6) and

Link AF point AE is also set to off(custom function number 7)

When taking pictures at the moment i use the AE-L lock button and expose somewhere in the middle of the image so the sky is not over blown and the foreground to dark.What i'm trying to achieve is maybe an easier way to expose my landscapes.

Am i right in thinking if i change custom function number 7 to on wherever the AF point focuses that would be my exposure.As when shooting landscapes i usually have the camera on centre or auto focus point which would be in the middle of the image anyway.

Or should i just keep with what i'm doing.

Thanks for any replies

You seem to be right I believe that was also my understanding although I think you need to set the metering to spot metering for it to work... not sure about that though.

What I mostly do is set the camera on M-mode and point it down to what I want to meter, in your case it's the ground so point it down the ground with the same lighting condition and press the green button, it will take a metering then and set the correct value.

I mostly do that and it works fine, certainly on the streets since they are mostly gray it will get a quite good exposure value from that.

EA-L Lock is handy when you want to hold the exposure value but increase the aperture or shutterspeed.
What I mean is if you have a correct exposure with f/5.6 1/250sec, you can lock that value and change one of them for example the f-number to f/4 and it hold the exposure value and correct the shutterspeed accordingly.
f/5.6 1/250sec would be the same as f/4 1/500sec I believe.
That's were I use the exposure lock for