Originally posted by FHPhotographer I'm not sure I understand. I'm guessing I should know this, but it never occured to me to focus on one section and meter another. How would I do that?
FHP
If you wanted to force that to happen, point the camer at the area you want to meter (using center-weighted or spot metering), hit the AE-L button to lock exposure in an auto mode or hit green button to set metering in M mode. Then recompose and focus normally. Actually, I use center-point focus too, so after metering, I'd point at the subject I want to focus on, half-press, then compose the way I actually want the picture to look and finishing pressing the shutter.
I'd do this if the subject I wanted in focus was unusually dark or light. I'd pick a more representative target for metering first.
To answer the original question, as far as I know there is no direct relationship between the focus point selection and the metering mode. Focus point selection affect focus point. Metering options affect metering. The only connection is if you have the option selected to link them AF point to metering, and even then only when using multi-segment metering. In this case, the area chosen as focus point is used by the metering algorithm in some unspecified way to influence the metering - presumably by giving extra weight to the segment containing the focus point.
And yes, matrix = multi-segment.