Shutterbugsailer Loc: Staten Island NY (AKA Cincinnati by the Sea)

Technology has changed. Believe it or not, there are a few young race car drivers who don't know how to drive a stick shift

tdekany Loc: Oregon

Lol sharpie! https://www.joeedelman.com - here is the latest victim of m4/3. After 40+ years of using Nikon, he had switched.

David Lyon

Guess I fit too. Have had digital point and shoots as well as phones. Currently shooting Cannon ELAN 7, Bronica ETRS/SQ B, Sinar F, and a Rochester Optical 5x7 with plans to bring back a Rochester Optical 8x10 (both Rochester’s are over 100 years old)

LarryFB Loc: Depends where our RV is parked

JD750 Loc: SoCal

And there it is.

Stardust Loc: Central Illinois

I used 120/220 in my Rollie Twin Lens back when the "sensors" was the light meter in my hand.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

And if you have the cameras you can still do that. You can embrace the new and the old as well. Keep the best for the future.

Stardust Loc: Central Illinois

Film cameras sold when I went fully digital and disagree somewhat about keeping old. At 71 I embrace new technology fully and still hard to keep up at the pace it is changing. Thinking now I need a drone/camera, as they are getting better cameras on drones the size of a cell phone.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Please note I also said keep the beset for the future. Which you appear to be doing. It is like drinking from the firehose but your are managing to do it. Kudos. Yes drones are amazing tech they will be the size of mosquitos before long!

JD750 Loc: SoCal

As to the man topic, there are many young photographers who have started with mirrorless and will not use DSLR tech.

Technology is marching forward, as happened with With D-SLRs and SLRs in the past, mirrorless format is now muscling D-SLR format out of the mainstream.

insman1132 Loc: Southwest Florida

If you like your current equipment's results, b, don't look back!!!

Enjoy your photography!!

wildweasel

There is no reason, If you have an Olympus EM1 Mark ll, you can already do things that no dslr can do.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Real photographers existed before DSLRS, so they still exist. When the SLR arrived on the scene, it was an attempt to provide something better than what was available at the time. It's the same with the DSLR and now the mirrorless. Given a good camera, skill, and the right conditions, a real photographer can take good pictures.

I switched to an SLR in the 1970s, and I still like SLR technology - in digital form.

marcshapiro55

Fascinating question that I quietly wrestled with for the past 15 years. (Incidentally, I thought that @peterff made some excellent points, and I will try not to repeat what has already been said.) In order to fully appreciate my perspective, I need to give you a little of my history with photography.

I have been serious about photography for the last 40 years, but I would not call myself a serious photographer. I am not a professional; just a committed amateur.

In the prehistoric days of film, I was a Canon guy. I owned two Canon SLRs in my first 20 years. They were magnificent machines producing crisp, beautiful images of everything I photographed. I experimented with film, slides, black-and-white and infrared. In the thousands of images I took on film, there was one recurring theme: by and large, my photographs were terrible! I was young and poor, and the worst part of it all was the cost of film and developing.

By the time digital emerged, I was out of school, working and had some disposable income. I was fascinated with the digital medium because of the instant feedback and unlimited “free“ images. However, the ultra-low resolution and lack of features suggested that digital was nothing more than a toy and would likely disappear. (Whew! Was I wrong about that!)

In 1998, when Sony crossed the resolution line into the 0.3 MP (300 K) territory, I jumped in. With that, my 500–600 images annually grew to 2,000-3,000. What was most significant about my move to digital, and what kept me going with 10 digital cameras over the next 20 years, was the consistent improvement in my images. Digital gave me the immediate feedback to learn about lighting, composition and (old school) special effects. But back to your question.

Now a veteran of numerous point-and-shoot cameras (Sony, Fuji, Canon and Nikon) I most recently committed to a Sony alpha a7II, which is full-frame and mirrorless. (I shunned the earliest DSLRs because of a technology quirk which caused a momentary blackout when the shutter was triggered.)

Why mirrorless in my case? The answer is simple: weight and convenience. I get all the benefits of a DSLR without having to commit to the weight and bulk of that equipment. As one of the posters below indicates: you will never see a Hell’s Angel on a minibike. However, a Hell’s Angel is identified by his motorcycle; I am not identified by my photographic equipment. (You also won’t see a Hell’s Angel taking his motorcycle into a restaurant, or carrying it around Disney World.)

My goal is to take great images, but the world’s immediate perception of me as a serious photographer has nothing to do with the quality of my images. Just look at all the terrible film images I took for 20 years!

My conclusion, therefore, is that you should serve your objectives. If you want great quality images, just about any camera today (even point-and-shoots) can give you that result. But the subject/composition/balance is up to you. If you want to be a Hell’s Angel photographer, grab yourself the biggest, heaviest and loudest equipment you can find.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

If you are perfectly satisfied with what you currently have, I'd say there is absolutely no reason to get one.