Recording video without blurring using Canon 550d

[Norma17]

Hi,
I need to record videos to make tutorials to teach handwriting. I have recoded the videos so many times at this stage using different camera settings and they are all coming out blurry! I know it might have to do with the depth of field so have tried to adjust this but I really don't know what I'm doing! I've tried looking at Youtube tutorials, etc but still haven't solved the problem!
Can anyone tell me what settings they think would be best to shoot close up, clear videos of my hand writing each letter? I need them to be close up ( the copy page will take up most of the frame)
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

[smrpix]

You have given no indication what your current settings are. But narrow depth of field is widened by using a smaller aperature (higher f-stop) and/or more light and/or a shorter lens (less zoom.)

You may want to post a short sample.

[awgie]

What lens are you using? And what is the distance between the camera and the subject?

Make sure you have any automatic focus, meter and white balance settings set to manual, otherwise the constant motion in the handwriting will prevent the camera from ever getting a steady picture.

If you're not using a macro lens, then you'll probably need to have the camera farther away, and zoom in on the subject. Even with a macro lens, if you have the camera too close to the subject, you won't be able to get both the hand and the paper focused in clearly. You may also try playing with the approach angle to decrease the amount of difference between the distance from the camera to the hand and the paper.

[johnmeyer]

Many cameras have a "macro" setting. If yours does not, you may not be able to do what you want. The "macro" feature changes the way the lens works to that it can focus on things that are really close. On some cameras, the macro feature only works if the lens is zoomed to the extreme wide angle position. If this is the case, you'll have to move the camera pretty close to the object.

The usual symbol for "macro" on the camera or in the camera's menu is a flower.