Max Caliber, I don't know anything about your camera, and maybe this won't work on yours, but here is the trick I use for closeups with mine...
Most digital cameras have a resolution setting... low, medium, high, or something like that. Usually the default is medium. Set it to high and take the picture as close as you can and still get it to focus.
Then crop the picture to show only the important stuff and enlarge it. In high res mode you can usually enlarge them quite a bit before they get grainy.
If you don't have software that will crop and enlarge it, look here for a shareware program that works really well and is easy to use:
http://www.djuga.net/retriever/home.html