How to format my digital camera?

I have a Canon digital camera that I have used with my iPhoto program frequently for still photographs. Recently, I took some short videos with my camera and I'm not sure how to access them on my computer. I think I need to import them into iMovie, but when I try to do this, it says that no camera is detected. Can anyone guide me through this? I'm not that computer savvy, so the simpler, step by step instructions would be most helpful. Thanks!

Hi Sarah: First, your inquiry is misleading. Formatting your camera has little to do with accessing your videos. Anyway, I, too, take occasional short videos with my Kodak camera. What I do, however, is simply attach my camera to my mac, activate iPhoto, and when it tells me to, I hit the download button and all pics, both still and video, enter iPhoto's library. Then, after your through, disengage the camera ( always make sure that you turn your camera OFF before doing this).
Your video pics are easily located in the iPhoto library - they are the only ones with a small camcorder logo in the bottom left of the frame, and each video will have the length in minutes and seconds on the frame. Merely click on it and voila!, you can watch it in Iphoto. If you want to burn it to a cd, you can easily do that by placing a blank cd (or dvd) into your superdrive, and hitting the burn button. Nothing more to it! You can also import them into iDvd or iMovie, but that is another topic.
As for formating your camera, only do it if you want to completely and forever delete and otherwise erase every pic on your camera's internal drive or memory card. It's not a bad idea, actually, to reformat if you've otherwise downloaded your pics onto your mac and have them archived to an external HD or onto blank disks in case your internal hardrive goes kerplunk! Your camera's menu will direct you how to do it in a few seconds, which effectively erases every image and gives you a fully clean slate. Hope this helps. wd

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Hi,
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8:58 PM Saturday; August 27, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

How to format my digital camera?

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