Nick, My MkI is not as old as yours… question for you, has yours developed dust spots? Have you ever needed to have it cleaned?
No dust. Keep in mind that most of my hiking is deserts, an environment of dirt, dust, and wind. Maybe I’ve been lucky? I don’t baby the camera either. I did add an aftermarket UV filter to protect the lens, but my understanding is the dust gets in through the zoom mechanism.
You can see the paint is worn off in spots from use. I bought a kit (the red stuff) to protect the camera body and it make the camera a whole lot less slippery.

The cover for the USB no longer stays locked in place. But I rarely use a cable. I remove the memory card and put it a slot in my MacBook Pro for transferring photos.

The camera is tough! A couple years ago I was hiking with Doug Ide and Peter Vacco. We were walking down a steep, steep dirt road to where my SUV was parked. The road was loose dirt, sand, and rocks. It was such a crappy road that my Expedition couldn’t make it up the road, which is why we were walking down it at the end of our trip. On a particularly slippery section (sand on top of bedrock), I decided to run down and defy gravity — as you can guess, a 67 year old man shouldn’t be running down these kinds of hills — and I executed a spectacular crash and roll. Oh, and my camera was in my pocket. When I got home the flash wouldn’t pop up because the edge of the case was crushed in from the impact. A little surgery with small flat head screwdriver and a pair of needle nose pliers got the flash to work again. The repair is ugly but functional. No other damage was done.


The RX100 takes better quality pictures than my Sony A6000 with the kit lens. I don’t use the A6000 for backpacking because of the weight and bulk.