The unique beauty of the ginkgo is in the wonderful fan-shaped leaves--at their most striking in the fall. We have one in our yard that gives us five days of exceptional color, especially when the leaves are backlighted with late-day sun. I've had to experiment to get the leaf detail and not let it be overexposed. This would be my suggestion--concentrate on the ginkgo leaves, whether green or golden.

The photo with the yellow flowers is nice but could be improved in several ways: (1) the flowers are not sharply focused (on my screen at least); (2) the bridge ends in the middle of the picture, and two trees stand squarely in the middle. I would suggest applying "the rule of thirds" and crop off enough on the left side so that there is only 1/3 of the scene to the left of the bridge instead of half the picture. Also, it would be great if you could clone-stamp out the old fence in the background.

I set the Elements clone stamp to 50% or less and paint out the shiny areas. If there are edges in the result, they can be taken out with the blur tool. This is pretty easy and good enough for most situations. See examples.

I have lots of dragonfly photos; you have to be patient, and eventually they will land on a stalk and you can get pretty close. I prefer to shoot dragonfly pix in a prairie rather than on the edge of a pond, ever since I fell in when the bank gave way (but got the picture and saved my camera!). With cropping, you can get "up close and personal" with dragonflies.

The panoramic format is perfect for these pictures. I agree with most of the comments--#3 has great drama, and the increased saturation overcomes a bit of drabness. It bothers me a little that in photo #1,the evergreens are cut off--we just see their pointed tops. I'd like to see their base and maybe a little bit of the land they stand on. You'd have a picture perfectly divided into thirds.

A couple of years ago, I researched on the Internet and was impressed with the ratings for the Panasonic Lumix FZ28 (10 mp, 18x zoom). I have been very happy with it. The lens is made by Leica, which was one reason for my choice. I find the camera reads low light very well even when left on the automatic setting--see photo of lilies lighted from the window. The camera is light-weight and easy to carry, unlike my DSLR and its heavy lenses. It does take some initial diligence to master the menu and change settings, but it's not a problem.

Nice - I like the petunias best - nicely composed. With the primrose, it might have been a good idea to pluck off the dead blossoms before you shot.

Your two sample pictures are very nice. The strength of the swan photo is in the composition--the swan is gracefully looking in, not out the side of the picture, and the reflection is lovely. But the swan lacks detail in the white feathers--it's flat. This is a hard shot because of the extreme contrast between the dark water and the white bird. Next time, use your exposure compensation to go down as much as a full stop; you should get more detail in the all-white areas. Also, the picture would have more life if the swan's eye had a catchlight. I have been known to create one with the Photoshop eraser tool. My Camera Club buddies are adamant that all wildlife pictures should show the creature's eye, and ideally with a catchlight.