flash&zoom questions

[adkmountainken]

i am having a hell of a time getting enough light on my pictures. looks like more then enough when i take the shot and look through the view on camera but when i down load them it is REALLY DARK. any ideas? also how do you know how much zoom to use. my camera has a 10x zoom but it seems i'm either waaay to close or to far away when i down load the pic's. this is a new camera and i'm sure i will get use to it but its giving me fits right now.
here is a case in point. a porcupine was climbing a tree next to me and i used the zoom where it looked like ihad a great shot as through the camera view and zoom i could distinctly see his teeth and eyes looking at me. when i down loaded them it is pretty far away and not detailed. when i try to in large it using Kodak software it just gets blurry.
 
here is another pic where i guess the flash just was not enough, it is only this bright as i used the highlight with the software.
 

[Steve Kendrot]

Looks like pretty low light conditions. Have you tried using a higher ISO setting? It makes the sensor more sensitive to the light, sort of like faster film speed.