Digital cameras 101

[Cali_Logic]

Ok here's the deal I bought my gf a digital camera its a canon powershot SD780 IS and everything is working fine except for when i go to record HD Video which is in 1280x720 30 fps setting it only records around 30 seconds of video sometimes a few seconds less or more but on the other two formats of video which are 640x480 30 fps and 320x240 30 fps it records fine with no problem. The SDHC card I am using is a SanDisk 8 GB SDHC Card and its completely empty, I want to know if this is an error with the camera or is the SDHC card not fast enough to process HD Video! also picture taking at any format works fine its just that HD Video.

p.s. when its about to stop recording a red exclamation mark pops out on the bottom right of the camera's screen i tried looking in the manual for anything on this and it says nothing im gonna keep looking so any help you guys can give is much appreciated thank you.

[ShutterbugGail]

Cali_Logic and welcome to the forum!

The specs for your camera (pg 32 in the manual) state that you should get about 43 minutes using a 8GB memory card. According to the manual, recording may stop even if the maximum clip length is not reached on some memory card. They recommend Class 4 or higher (pg 95).

Not all SDHC cards are high speed, so if yours is not, you will need to get one that is. Also, you should do a low level format of the card.

Here's some information about the difference between formatting and erasing a memory card:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/accessories/memory-cards/erasing-and-formatting-a-memory-card/