ok I found this on metering.. now I am real confused because when I first bought my camera. it was driving me crazy because only small areas were coming out in focus. so I took it to a camera store and asked them what I am doing wrong. and the guy said well you have your camera set up all wrong. and he showed me the metering mode and it was set on evaluative metering. and he said to only shoot with that if you have like a vase with a scratch on it and you want to show the scratch so you can sell it on ebay... and the partial metering was for if you wanted to shoot a portrait. and then the center weighted metering was if you want everything in the shot to be in focus. and the DF problem I was having would go away.

and then the 9 boxes on the camera he set to where only the center one will blink red when in focus because before you never knew what one would jump to focus. so ever sense my camera set up like that I have left it on weighted metering like he said. and only one center box will focus now. and i have not changed it sense.

he wanted to charge me $75 an hour for photograhy lessons but I turned him down on that :-)
Miranda

Don't blame you one bit for not paying him $75 an hour

Evaluative metering should be able to give you the correct exposure far more times than center weighted imho. It is an auto mode set up by Canon to recognise 10,000's of different types of photographs and to chose the correct metering for each. Now I am not saying it is perfect, but it is the one I would use.  Give it a try. 

I am not advocating you get deeply into the technicalities of metering, it is much better to get to know how your camera will behave in lots of different light conditions and know how to adapt to those. This can only be done with experience so take shots in all sorts of light just to get to know how the camera will react. 

One thing that is important to know and will help you is:   how to change exposure compensation. It is a simple control to make your pics darker or lighter. So having done your first shot as a trial adjust it with exposure compensation to get the results you want.  Usually you will end up by setting to -1/3 or maybe -2/3 . Some people leave their cameras permanently on -1/3

Rather than pay the guy in the camera shot do you have any friends whose photography you admire that you can meet up with and shoot together. Learn from each other . If you want to pay for lessons pic on a professional whose photography you admire and ask then to come out on a shoot with you or attend a workshop by them if they do such things.

Thanks Onslow
Dont worry I wont get to technical I promise :-)
I just will only learn when something dont work the way I had it in mind then I want to find out why so I can fix it. if metering will fix the reflecting light problem I am having then I will learn metering :-)

the way I messure if I am getting any better is how many useable Images I get out of 230 each time I shoot. and if I shoot 230 I seem to only get 5 usable ones. as you see cause I post them here. but then I look at the ones I couldnt use and figure out why. and I could get another 30 good shots if I could get rid of the reflection problem we have been talking about lol

and as for friends I can shoot with ummmm no according to all my friends im the photographer lol and boy do I have them fooled so glad they dont read this forum lol

everything I have learned has been from here just asking questions and go try.. I have done 8 hour long shoots in the past and get home all excited just to find out not one picture I could use :-(
so its not been an easy road at all but fun :-)
I am going to play with metering and see if I can get better number of shots out of 230
thank you so much Onslow :-)
Miranda

Different metering is employed for different types of scenes...hence why Cams have different metering anyway!...as is under/over Ev Comp!
Best way to see if a shot is 'exposed' the way you want it is to view the histogram!

Metering has no way to do with focusing!

lol now there is a new word histogram!???? lol oh my this just gets better and better lol
but were not going to get technical now are we lol

whats a histogram do on the camera lol

Attached Link: http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=histogram

Once you know how it reads....a breeze!!!

I agree with Richard on the "evaluative" vs "center weighted".
One of the limitations with the way your cam is set up now is that your metering is biased towards what it sees in the center part of the the frame....that's not always desired.
Also, with your focus point being "fixed" in the center....well, that's not always what you want either...

So, with your current set up....you could focus on a subject, lock focus, then recompose the image with the person on the left hand side...take the shot....and the subject might be exposed improperly because if you did not "lock" the exposure...the metering took the center part of the image into consideration.....and of course the subject is not located there.

BTW...don't pay the guy any money.....center weighted metering would not help you get everything in the shot in focus...

Also, five keepers out of 200....well, that is not unusual....I've found that if I delete 150 of those, my percentage goes up!

The "histogram" is your friend.....LOL!

ohhhhhhhhhh that thing thats what i look at when i shoot cause I figured out it will blink at me with spots that are real white and those are the spots I been trying to get rid of. that we been talking about. so what I do it turn the dial and keep shooting till the white spots dont blink at me anymore. then sometimes I have a problem of all the histogram leaning real far to the left and those are the images I find are a bit to dark lol

so I do use it just a very good chance I dont use it right. and photoshop has the same thing in it and I have zero idea how to use it in photoshop lol

thanks once I figure out metering I will learn histogram. if I try both now I will be yelling teacher my brain is full lol

histogram leaning real far to the left and those are the images I find are a bit to dark

There you go!...

too far to the right....over cooked!!!

You will find  a many a Pro will look at the histogram first!

ok point camera hit half way to focuse, then lock focus, recompose the image check histogram fire away and wonder why I only got the tail of that bird when it flew by lol oh this is going to be fun lol
if i could think this fast i would win every fight I  ever had with my hubby lol

dont give up on me guys I am going to figure this out lol

Your get there...its not rocket science...really!

I will second the recommendation to learn to use Exposure Compensation.  Yes, I do check the histogram farily regularly but with experience have found EV compensation a true friend, indeed.  This is easier than thinking much about it, truly.