A 2010 Camera, a 2012 Lens, and a Trip to Italy

A 15-year-old camera with no USB-C charging, no eye sensor, and dated video specs still earns a spot in a working photographer's bag for a trip to the Italian coast. That says something about what actually keeps a camera in rotation years after its spec sheet stops mattering.

James Popsys spends the day shooting in Camogli, just south of Genoa in northern Italy, with his Lumix GX1 and a 20mm f/1.7 lens he's owned since around 2012. Earlier in the year he listed a few small changes he wanted for the camera: a couple of spare batteries, since it only came with one and can't charge over USB-C, and a viewfinder. He tracked down an add-on EVF that flips up and down, and by his own account it has changed the way he shoots with the body entirely. The finder isn't modern, isn't especially bright, and lacks an eye sensor, so you press a button to turn it on and off.

Popsys ties his preference for a viewfinder to something bigger than the GX1. He explains that he feels more connected to a photo when he's composing through his own eye, the same reason he avoids drones and doesn't enjoy the Ricoh GR series despite calling those cameras phenomenal for image quality in a small body. The gap between shooting with a screen and shooting through a finder looks minor on paper, but he describes it as massive in practice. He also walks through why he wanted to visit Camogli in winter, when the swells build and the sun sets closer to in line with the coast rather than parallel to it, and why summer left him fighting 80% humidity and a feels like temperature of 42 degrees Celsius.

The idea worth taking from this is that a camera's staying power often comes from how it feels in the hand, not how it ranks against newer models. Popsys singles out the GX1's front grip, thumb grip, and the pressable thumb wheel that switches function as the reasons he keeps coming back to it. That thinking lines up with a wider shift in the used market, where bodies stuck between "modern" and "classic" are picking up devoted followings. He points to the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the tiny Lumix GM1 as examples in the same category. If you're deciding what to buy secondhand, ergonomics and handling are the traits that tend to age well, long after resolution and video specs stop turning heads. Popsys even hopes manufacturers are watching what endures, floating the idea of a grip like this on something like a Leica Q series.

Watch the full video above to see the shots Popsys pulls from the sea defenses along the coast and how the old Lumix holds up against a brewing thunderstorm.