Does your camera have a preliminary focus? My cameras button goes half way down first, at this point the camera trys to focus on whats in its view and it will give you either red for not focused or green for push the button the rest of the way down and take the picture. Does yours do something similar? Also in addition to flash I would use a flash light to give you some light on the object your trying to take a pic of, it makes it easier for the caamera to focus. And instead of getting super close to the object try to use your OPTICAL zoom, not digital. And try to find a balance between optical zoom and acutal distance, find a point where it is definately in focus. You gotta kinda play with the optical zoom to get a nicely focus image.