Best Bang for your Buck

If you follow the strobist blog (and if you're serious about photography, even as a hobby, you should), then this is the perfect flash for you. Lots of power (relatively), great battery life, decent recovery time, but best of all, perfect price.

You can expect to pay between $65 and $80 for one of these flashes, and it has almost all the functionality of the $160 LumoPro 160 flash (which itself has almost all the functionality of the $440 Nikon SB-800).

Don't buy this if you want automatic flash exposures done with an on-camera flash. You're much better off buying the $125 SB-400 for that. These are the perfect candidate for manual, portable, off-camera flashes that will be modified in some way (umbrella, snoot, grid, omni-bounce, etc.).

Pro:
Portable
Good Battery Life
Decent power / recharge
Cheap!

Con:
Not as powerful as a strobe, or the SB-800-type flashes (although close)
Only steps down to 1/16 power (LumoPro 160 steps down to 1/64th, like the SB-800s) -- you can use neutral density gels to step the flash down further, but it wastes more battery than if the flash could do it natively
Zooms to 85mm (LP160 zooms to 105mm) - minor, and if you're a strobist, you'll probably snoot it if you need it zoomed further anyways.

Excellent for off-camera work

I bought this flash to use off-camera with an umbrella.

Size and build quality are a level up from my Canon 430EX. Flash power on 1/1 is almost a full stop more with the Nikon. It offers manual control from 1/1 to 1/16 at full stop increments, PC-sync ports, and a 24-85mm zoom head. Unlike the 430EX, zoom works even if the head is angled upward.

This flash is also capable of rudimentary auto-fill on a Canon EOS body with no modifications, though you've got to set the expected ISO and aperture on the flash in advance. Recycle time at full power with Eneloop NiMH batteries is 4 seconds. The range of motion of the flash head is the same as the 430EX, but slightly more awkward because there are separate button releases for tilt and swivel. It does not have the 430EX's built-in wide-angle diffuser.

Overall, this is an impressive and quality piece of kit. There's no reason to prefer a Vivitar 285HV except for the ease of manual control. Even there, it only takes about five minutes to figure the SB-24 inside and out.

Nikon SB-24 is a beautiful BRIGHT flash

Nikon Sb-24 is great and affordable and bright as hell.
Great choice. Includes PC chords, that make it possible to have off camera flash with chords, or you can get transceivers that connect either by the hot shoe or with the pc link or other ways.

Over all this flash is a great choice for any photographer.

Nikon quality for a fantastic price!

I recently purchased a Nikon N6006 camera. While reading the instructions they mentioned several flash units this being the most recent at that time period. I looked at the SB-22 and SB-23 and decided that this unit would mate well with my camera.

The unit is a quality piece of photo equiptment built solid compared to a modern dslr flash units. I purchased this particular unit because of its ttl features and how it should work with the cameras matrix metering system.

I haven't processed any film taken with the flash, but i know it has to be an improvement over the units built in flash which i have tried. I've been out of the photography loop for a while but i think with this flash unit in my arsenal i'm well on the way to getting back in the saddle.

Because of the wide spread use of digital technology now i find that i am able to purchase quality film equiptment for bargin prices now. This flash has more features than i'll probably ever use. Its manual is comprehensive and can be found on the internet.

I do not have any dislikes about this product, got a good solid product at a good price, now all i have to do is put it to use. Compared to the modern digital flash unit that I purchased it is built more solid, has more features and is simple to use.

SB-24

For starters, I am a professional photographer. Although the SB-24 does not TTL with DSLR cameras, it works great as a manual flash. They are cheap and easy to come by. I trigger mine with pocket wizard remotes, but most less expensive triggers will work. (some at the expense of reliability) The newer SB-26 has a built in slave feature, but the price is a bit more.
Pros: cheap, reliable, manual features, durable
cons: no DSLR TTL, manual only goes down to 1/16 (although you can stop it down with gels)

All in all a great flash for getting the light off the camera. Shoot through an umbrella and you have a great portable lighting solution. You can find more info online. I think the best source is David Hobby's strobist blog.