For me the benefits of getting newer gear has been about efficiency, not necessarily picture quality. Silent shooting w/ mirrorless cameras and electronic shutt

For me the benefits of getting newer gear has been about efficiency, not necessarily picture quality. Silent shooting w/ mirrorless cameras and electronic shutter helps a with wildlife because you can be more stealthy and not have the shutter noise distract a bird or deer or skittish animals. Advanced mirror-less cameras have a level of accuracy to the focusing that was not possible with previous systems. This allows you to rattle off picture after picture with perfect sharpness (5, 10, 15, 20 or even 30 frames-per-second bursts) - reducing time to redo shots - especially with kids who move a lot, or action shots where there is a perfect frame and sometimes with older tech, you have a couple of in-focus shots, and then a missed-focus shot. Modern high-megapixel sensors coupled with high-quality glass allows you to crop without loosing much detail. I can use a 24 or a 35mm lens and with a 50 mega-pixel sensor, I can crop to the same field-of-view as a 50mm/75mm lens and still get a ton of detail. Modern coatings in lenses eliminate internal reflections, allowing you to shoot into the sun without a huge drop in contrast (very common with older lenses, even L series).