Tutorial for Manual Mode?

The tutorials I’ve been able to find for actually using the M6 Mark II have been (in my opinion anyway) somewhat lacking. Perhaps this is now beating a dead horse as we transition to R7 or R10, but one may hope for improvement. All the Canon cameras come with a wide assortment of “features,” and even customizable user modes to combine the features. But it is not often clear the best way to make the features play nicely together to accomplish some task, or if it is even possible to combine some of the features. I do not believe this is necessarily a shortcoming of the Canon platforms; but may be more of a training and documentation clarity issue.

The particular Use Case I’m using as a model here is that of taking a sequence of photos to stitch together in post processing as a panorama. Details of pano-heads, leveling, sequence framing, etc. aren’t touched upon here; but one would think it possible to make some of these tasks friendlier. Camera controls could be stored together as a custom Mode Dial position; though it would be nice to give this position an editable custom INFO Help text. [The Automatic Update of Registered custom shooting modes seems particularly dangerous, and perhaps should be disabled.]

What I would like to do:

1. I want to focus once and keep that focus for the entire pano sequence. Should also keep the same exposure. Fully manual focus operation, with the Peaking feature is nice for this. What would work better is initial focus using an AF mode and holding this initial focus for the entire sequence. This should likely be a ONE SHOT operation, with 1-Point or Area method. This is close to how I think Back Button focus already works; with AF turned off in the half-way shutter button [It is not real clear in the documentation what function should be enabled for the AF-ON button. The <*> choice for half-way shutter button is particularly obscure. Should the Face Identification with Tracking method be inadvertently selected, there may be a conflict with locked AF.]
2. For part of the pano sequence it is desirable to change the focus point, (in anticipation of focus stacking). This could be done by pressing the AF-ON button again and fiddling with the focus point position. Manually focusing with a lens after AF is another personality, though this may be problematic as Peaking is turned off, [or is it?]
3. Tutorials for actually using Manual mode exposure adjustment are not real useful. Most go into detail about the ISO<>Shutter<>Aperture tradeoffs, [Basic Photography 101…]. And no farther. I’ve seen some suggest actually carrying an old hand-held meter! [Old match-needle meters worked great!] What one would really like is an automatic way to set an initial ball-park exposure, fine tweak it, and hold this exposure for the entire pano sequence. As near as I can tell, there is presently nothing equivalent to Back Button Exposure. The available methods for the half-press shutter always set a new exposure, unless a custom function is enabled for the <*> button; requiring the user to hold this button pressed to prevent an exposure change. Changing exposure on every shutter press during the pano sequence is not desired, nor is having to hold a button in during the entire sequence. AE Lock (hold) <*H> sounds like a possibility, though (in my mind anyway) the documentation is vague. Still, fully manual exposure will work, once one figures out how to get an initial exposure and optimize it.
4. Fiddling with the knobs works. With no initial guess about ball-park exposure, one can fiddle with the knobs until something gets close. Exposure Simulation of the actual scene may get one close, though I find using this in sunlight difficult. The best light meter one can find is the histogram as it measures what is happening everywhere in the frame. (On my camera) the histogram is visible in the display during P, Tv, Av, and M dial Modes. [I’ve not checked to see if it is visible in any of the registered user custom modes.] (On my camera) the displayed histogram changes continuously as I point it at different things. In particular, in manual M mode an aperture and shutter speed can set. Half-pressing the shutter button displays a match-needle, which then may be centered by adjusting the aperture and/or shutter speed dials. Once set, these values will be held for the entire pano sequence. There is still not an automatic way to set an initial ball-park exposure, but this may be adequate.
5. A potentially useful Mode dial setting on the M6ii is Flexible Fv. Here any of the three ISO<>Shutter<>Aperture settings may be adjusted while watching the histogram, and the values will hold throughout the pano sequence. [Upon half-pressing the shutter button the match-needle does NOT display, nor do the values blink indicating over or under exposure (Advanced User Guide pp.115)].
6. In M or Fv modes, partway through the pano sequence, the shutter speed may be adjusted while adjusting the aperture in the opposite This will give the same exposure, at a different shutter speed. This is useful in seascape/waterfall photos where different shutter speeds give a different character to the moving water. Similarly, the shutter speed may be slowed down, without changing anything else, to accommodate neutral density filters.
7. It is also desirable for the constant exposure/focus operations described here to play nicely with auto exposure bracketing for (post processing) HDR or exposure stacking. (Advanced User Guide pp.143) says AEB will adjust ISO<>Shutter<>Aperture, but does not say how this choice is determined. Auto Lighting Optimizer should also be disabled during HDR brackets (and most likely also disabled during panos).
8. For both panos and HDR it is desirable to use the 2Second delay timer to allow any finger-press motion to damp out. Since the M6ii is susceptible to mechanical shutter bounce it is also desirable to use the electronic rather than mechanical shutter. [Hopefully, both the delay timer and electronic timer may be configured in the custom Mode dial.]

I’ve attempted here to show a M6ii configuration useable for panoramic and/or HDR photography. It should be possible to aggregate this configuration into a single user custom Mode dial selection. I would appreciate any constructive criticism about what I may have confused, or if this may be accomplished easier.