I use the discontinued SB-400 for fill-flash all the time in all of my DSLRs. I don't need or want to carry anything bigger.

Nikon's competitors like Canon and Ricoh use the similar name Speedlite for their flashes. Both names indicate that strobe flashes produce much shorter and more intense bursts of light than earlier photographic lighting systems, such as flashbulbs, or continuous lamps used in some studio situations. The Mode, Menu and the first three buttons below the LCD are lit along with the LCD. The power and OK buttons are never lit. On the other hand, one performance aspect is clearly improved and its a doozey: flash recycling is rated as 50-90% faster than before. I actually tried this with some nearly dead batteries--which usually represent the worst case for recycling--and was surprised to still see a major difference between my SB-800 and SB-900. With newly charged Nimh recyclable batteries, the stated claim of 2.3 seconds was nearly met in my testing, and I was getting almost exactly a 100% speed boost when I moved those batteries from the SB-800 to the SB-900. That's with four batteries. Essentially, the SB-900 recycles with four batteries about as fast as the SB-800 does with five. Nice. No more battery wart on the side of my flash! Speedlight is the brand name used by Nikon Corporation for their photographic flash units, used since the company's introduction of strobe flashes in the 1960s. Nikon's standalone Speedlights (those not built into the company's cameras) have the SB- prefix as part of their model designation. Current Speedlights and other Nikon accessories make up part of Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS), which includes the Advanced Wireless Lighting, that enables various Nikon cameras to control multiple Nikon flash units in up to three separate controlled groups by sending encoded pre-flash signals to slave units.

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The zoom automatically adjusts to your lens, and smarter than earlier flashes, also adjusts for FX or DX. The SB-910's color correction filters are critical to get the color of the flash to match indoor lighting; without these filters, the flash light would look too blue indoors at home or in good restaurants, and too purple under fluorescent lights. Under Auto or Flash White Balance, most Nikons are smart enough to set the WB appropriately when you use the green filter under fluorescent light and the orange filter under normal tungsten and halogen light; there are little tabs on the filters that key a sensor on the flash that talks to your digital camera.

The Nikon SB-400 is another very basic flash unit. It is very similar to the SB-300, except it only allows the head to be tilted 90 degrees upwards (which is pretty limiting). It also won’t work in master/commander or slave/remote modes. Just like the SB-300, it cannot rotate side to side either, making it impossible to bounce the light off walls and other vertical surfaces, unless the camera is positioned in a vertical orientation. The SB-400 has a faster recycle time than the SB-300, lasts longer and is slightly larger in size. Nikon’s i-TTL is also fully supported, except for High Speed Sync and AF Assist. The Nikon SB-400 has been discontinued, so your only option is to buy it used.Its guide number is 38meters / 125feet at ISO 100 and 35mm, with a maximum range of 58m when adjusted at 105mm. Some strange cost cutting. Plastic 1/4" tripod mount? No multiple cabled TTL or TTL modes for film bodies? No D-TTL? No dedicated head style switch? with AA Lithium, but only that much if you give the SB-910 as much as two minutes to recycle at the end! Nikon Speedlight SB-5000 is the first model featuring 2.4GHz radio communication for slave and master mode. It weighs 420g, slightly heavier than the SB-9XX units. The menu system is similar to SB-700 and 9XX series. It uses a dot matrix display with led illumination unlike SB-700 and 9XX series' EL illuminator. The modeling button makes a return. It is slightly more powerful than the previous models however still less powerful than the SB-800. The head contains a fan activated after a short period of use to prevent overheating. This feature promotes more frequent and consecutive flashes without heat issues.

No Film TTL. Most of the old film TTL subtleties are missing, as well. There is no provision for the various balanced fill-flash modes that were the herald of film TTL. Lots of little touches that are a modest step forward. Faster recycling, better swivel, dedicated gel holder that impacts white balance correctly, the list of little things that were added or improved is quite long. Styled light. The ability to control the concentration of light is exceptionally useful. Indeed, it makes you want even more control.

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Distance-priority manual flash: you tell the SB-910 the distance (it reads ISO and aperture from your camera), and it calculates and sets the manual power level to use before you shoot.

When I need more than one flash for serious lighting, I don't bother with these battery-powered things and use real studio strobes, which cost less and work so much better. I use my discontinued SB-600 in the very, very few occasions I need more power, or if I'm shooting a 35mm camera or any vintage. As of 2016, the SB-700 is its replacement, and the best flash if you need a big, powerful flash

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If you need to recycle even faster, try the optional SD-9, which will get you right down to the one second cycle range.