When I use a flash, the flash only seems to reach about ten feet or so. The biggest problem with the flash is if I go to one of my kid's school presentations, the flash illuminates the row of parents in front of me and never quite gets to the stage.

You've pretty much just run up against the limitations of your camera, and you're not going to be able to do too much to make it work. You already know how far your flash will reach, and you know that you can steady the camera on just about anything to make long exposures workable without a flash.

You're just going to have to be one of those parents who walks up to the front row if you want to take a picture. However, you'll never get anything other than a snapshot using the built in flash of a pocket sized camera.

You can take some great shots with point and shoot cameras, but you have to accept the good (having it with you) with the lack of features.

Matthew