Dim light on its own is not a great deal of help as only you recognise how dim, dim actually is.
However Stevie and I have been to Banham Zoo in Norfolk a couple of times so I have been looking at the exifs. This is something I really think you should do to see what ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture combination the camera set for your very poor images. With your camera you should have also got a copy of View NX software. If you look art the screen grabs here you will see a tab on the left side of the screen " Camera Settings". Click that and as you click on any image the settings for that shot will be displayed. Personally I hate the various Icon programs as it makes for sloppy shooting. You do really need to be able to see what combination of ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture you are using to maximise the number of good shots you get. Stevie uses Program mode but she is now in the habit of using 'program shift' to select the best combination of shutter speed and aperture for any shot.
Back to our Banham experience then we go through the whole gamut from bright sun to deep shade. I am guessing you may be referring to the equivalent, or even worse light, than our in shade Fennec Fox, for your dim light images. Looking at the ISO, Shutter speed, and aperture settings then as your lens is f4 at 55mm but f5.6 at 200mm I would suspect that the shutter speeds in your exifs will be very low.
Without support for your camera, there is an old approximate rule for handheld photography to avoid camera shake, of the minimum safe shutter speed equaling the focal length of the lens.
Two things here.
1) That does depend on how steady you are. Some people can go below it and others like me have a safe limit well above it.
2) Due to the magnification factor of your sensor you have to multiply any focal length by 1.5. This means when your lens is at 55mm your safe shutter speed handheld would be 1/82.5 sec or 1/125 sec in round numbers.
Look back at the action shots you refer to and I will bet low light is the problem. In low light subject contrast is reduced, and if the long end of the lens is selected then the autofocus is working at its limit of f5.6 and that could lead to errors. For handheld at 200mm you should be using a shutter speed in the region of 1/250 sec +.
If I am right about the shutter speeds then you have to think about support, and the cheapest option is a monopod. They are less bulky than a tripod and quite useable in a zoo environment. If you do get one then don't get the thinnest lightest one as they are just a waste of space. You need something robust enough for you to put some hand weight on the mounted camera for extra stability in low light situations.
I look forward to your response in regards to your duff shots.
Don
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