WB for Fill Flash

I'm taking some senior pictures outside and plan on using fill flash. My question is about WB in such a situation. Do you set WB for the primary light source (daylight or cloudy depending on weather)?

You wouldn't set to flash if just using the flash for fill correct?

Or, is it best to use AWB?

Nic

Hopefully the color temp of the flash is relatively close to the ambient. This is usually ok for sunny or cloudy conditions. If you are shooting early morning or late afternoon, you may need a gel on your flash to bring down its color temp, lest you get unrealistic colors that are all but impossible to fix.

If you really want to get anal about it, you can have your subject hold a Whibal card or regular gray card for a test shot, then click on that with your RAW converter in post to set the white balance.

Often you'll find that the "correct" white balance is not the "best" white balance. You may want to raise the color temp a few hundred K to make skin tones look a big more healthy. Honestly, I usually adjust it with the RAW converter until it looks good to me, then synchronize all the shots in the set.

I have yet to master using my light set, or correctly being able to have a background match the subject, Any ideas?

Test to see what is the right f-stop to correctly expose something at various distances. Help on that here: Fill light at sunset
Then set up the cams ISO & shutter speed to work with that. You may have to zoom in-out to get everything to work, but the flash-subject distance is the key to get it all to work.

i often use the light meter to set the av and then i'll modify my settings from there to suit myself

That will work, too, but test first to see what your flash really puts out.

yeah my flash lights have been weird lately despite being put on the same settings one will be pumping out at around 8 and the other will be sitting around 6 not sure why

Capacitors age & leak, just like everything else.