Best flash for Nikon camera?

I've been searching on Amazon, Ebay and BHphoto and have found many different flashes for my Nikon D5000, but am still undecided on which to purchase. Just a decent speedlight flash for under 150$. One that I could use wirelessly would be nice because I do a lot of macrophotography/portraits. (NOT looking for macro flash system) any suggestions are very much appreciated.

The best flash will have to do with your needs.

The "best" one would be the SB900 or a good used SB800. They have the most output and can be controlled using the Commander Mode that your camera has.

The SB700 puts out some lessor light but much better than the on-board flash.

For just basic use, the SB400 should do the job.

However, macro photography will require a special flash type and they are generally quite expensive.

Finding one for under $150 will be tough, even used. I recently found a good used SB600 for $200, just about $20 less than what it cost new a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately one of the things that Nikon left off your entry-level DSLR is the capability of wireless flash mode using the CLS. That takes a D90 or above to have.

You can buy a SU-800 to do CLS, but at $250, you are already over budget.

Your option though is to use the flash in manual exposure mode. You can buy a set of inexpensive RF remote flash triggers, such as the Yongnuo RF-603s. For about $20 each (you need one for the camera, and one for each flash you want to use). Alternatively, you can buy a wired remote cord.

That takes care of the wireless function.

In your budget, you are going to have to go with a 3rd party flash. Of those, I like the Metz units the best, but they are not much cheaper than Nikon speedlights.

You can just about forget finding a SB600, even used for your budget. For some reason the price of new ones shot up to over $300 right after Nikon announced they were discontinuing them. You can still find a new one at some dealers, but they are $300 plus.

I paid $220 for my SB600 a year or so ago, and sold it a couple months ago used on eBay for $250.

For macro photography, it is pretty tough to get decent results without getting the flash units close up.

This though would be in your budget. Before I bought a Nikon R1 macro flash, I bought two Morris Mini flash units. They are not very powerful, but you don't need a lot of power for macro, and they worked perfect for that.

The Morris Minis are slave flashes, which detect when you fire off your on-camera flash. You will have to shoot in manual exposure mode, but it is an inexpensive solution as they cost about $25 each.

However, depending on your lens, you might get a shadow from your on-camera flash when using it in the macro range. You can either put a piece of paper in front of it so that the Morris Minis still see the flash so they can slave off it, or buy a Nikon AS-15 hot shoe to PC Synch cord and plug one of the Morris flashes to the camera, and slave the second flash off the first one.

And you may want to buy a macro dual flash bracket, but there are several designs of those available.

Otherwise, the only way to stay within your budget is a SB400 and an aftermarket party remote hot-shoe flash cable that is equivalent to a Nikon SC-28 (buying the Nikon unit will bust your budget). This will allow you to get the flash right up close for macro.

But the caveat is the SB400 is not a lot more powerful than your on-camera flash, so don't expect miracles. It should be powerful enough for macro work though.