I looking for a flash for my Nikon D5000?

I'm looking for a cheap but quality flash for my nikon D5000. I mostly shoot animals both in motion, close up and portraiture. (horses cats dogs).
This will be my first flash, i'm looking for one what works on and off the body of my camera.

Beware! Cheap can work out expensive in the long term.
They break more easily
They wear out quicker
They don't have full compatibility with the camera electronics
They don't give full functionality

Buy a dedicated Nikon unit and save in the long term.

You can go with Hahnel Combi TF, it has a radio trigger to be used off camera and also can be used on camera. You can find the review at " http://www.smartphotography.in/reviews/accessories/958-trigger-happy-hahnel-combi-tf ". Hope this helps…

Any flash you use off camera is going to require you buy either an expensive cable or even more expensive remote trigger unit if you want to retain iTTL functionality. That couple of hundred dollars you saved by not buying a D90 is going to be eaten up with the cost of outfitting an off camera flash,

And a flash it usually one time where buying the camera-brand unit is going to be the best solution.
an
The cheapest you are going to get out is a SB700 with either a SU800 if you want wireless iTTL control, or a SC29 if you want iTTL through the cable.

There are some third party flashed that will do iTTL, but you will still have the same problem if you want to go wireless for an off-camera flash. It has been my experience that those don't always work that well, so I'd stick with a SC-29 cable if you use one of those.

Of course, you could always go with a non-iTTL wireless flash trigger such as a Youngnuo RF603, but the flash would be in manual mode if you know how to do that.

So you could spend from $200 to $600, depending on your comfort level with iTTL vs Manual flashes.

http://www.althephoto.com

Firstly, your D5000 does not have the Nikon AWL/CLS wireless remote flash control system, so that kinda negates spending big money on Nikon flashes anyway.

TTL (auto flash metering) can be nice to have for 'run & gun' flash photography, but like most things Auto it can often get the exposure wrong.

You want a cheap, quality flash - the flash I can recommend is the Yongnuo YN560 - about £40-50 - you can use this on camera, or off camera with a set of RF602 triggers (about £18). This is a manual flash - you set the power on the back of it from full (1/1) down in stages to 1/128.

The best resource for off camera flash is the Strobist blog;
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

This is one of my shots using 2x YN560's off camera triggered with RF602 triggers from a Nikon D300;

TTL is frankly overrated. Nikon's TTL-BL metering is pretty good, but even then it's not infallible. Therefore, paying £200 extra for TTL is a little bit wasteful, I have a TTL gun and I pretty much only use it in manual mode, which makes me think why I bothered in the first place.

Yongnuo is a cheap Chinese manufacturer of flashguns and wireless triggers, and while the quality isn't that great, as long as you don't abuse it you'll be alright.

The yn560 is the flashgun to get, and the RF-602 the trigger to go with. You can go with a one light setup, and just use a white surface to reflect light in as a fill. I'd also say you'll need something to produce diffuse light (probably a shoot through umbrella), as bare bulb can be rather unpleasant both aesthetically and for the animal. You'll also need something to hold the light, this will probably mean a light stand and an umbrella bracket. I'd recommend looking at either an omnibounce or a fongsphere when using on camera.

Just one last add on. With horses I would recommend care with flash (if at all).