Thanks for the kind words. Sorry about the EXIF data - Picasa strips it all out. The camera is a Nikon D200 and the three lenses used for the shots are the 18-200mm VR, 70-200mm f2.8 VR (sometimes with 1.7x tc), and a 50mm f1.8.
I've had the camera for just about a year now and it has been a constant learning experience. I feel like I am just getting to the point now of understanding the camera and software well enough to get the results I want. I shoot in raw and that gives a little extra latitude to fix things after the fact.
The night castle, fountain, and fireworks shots were all done with the 18-200mm VR at ISO400-800 and shutter speeds of 1/8-1/4s. I don't have rock solid hands....the image stabilization works that well. For fireworks the sweet spot is more like 1/2-3s exposures. I posted a couple of other pics from this lens below. I was amazed that it captured the shot of Test Track that clearly at 1/80s
The 18-200mm VR runs out of gas the moment you need to deal with low light and subject motion at the same time. For the Lion King show I used the 50mm f1.8. For all of the animal shots (except for the duck head) I used the 70-200mm VR f2.8. This is not a lens you want to carry all the time due to weight.
The Duck head shot was done in Magic Kingdom where the Ducks will walk right up to you in search of food. I was able to use the 18-200mm for that.
The Lion shot was done on the Safari ride using the 70-200mm VR 2.8 + 1.7x tele-converter. Even with that I ended up cropping a bit. The Safari ride is near impossible - you are bouncing around and the animals are running around. But you can almost always count on that silly Lion being in the same spot all the time. Maybe it is stuffed!
The Tiger in need of a belly rub was shot through glass on the nature trail.
I would suspect that the Nikon D40 and D80 would also do quite well with the same lenses. The 18-200mm VR with the 50mm f.18 are not all that bad to carry around and would cover a lot of shooting situations. I'm not sure how well the 18-200mm VR would work on the Safari ride though. I needed a fast shutter speed and was struggling to capture enough light even with an f2.8 lens.
Regardless of equipment WDW is always a difficult shooting environment due to low light and motion, which is why I enjoy it so much. I had my share of missed/blurry pics. If you look at the picture of the colorful bird at 100% there is some blur - web size is forgiving.
- very cute! You mentioned that you didn't use a tripod - you're one very steady person!! May I ask what equipment you did use? There was no exif data available on your photos. 
I'm only curious, because your photos are just amazingly clear and sharp - and the color just pops! I'm also hoping Santa will upgrade me this Chistmas!!!
(but I need to know what to put on the wish list first!!)
Hope to see more soon.
